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CombinatoRx Raises $40 Million
BOSTON, MA - Sept. 19, 2002 - CombinatoRx, a privately held biopharmaceutical company, today announced that it has raised over $40 million in its second venture capital round. The financing, led by Flagship Ventures, includes new investments from existing investors Canaan Partners, TL Ventures, BioVentures Investors and Foundation Medical Partners in addition to new investors Adams Street Partners, Novartis BioVentures Ltd., Global Life Science Ventures, POSCO BioVentures Limited, Private Life Biomed A.G., CDIB BioScience Ventures Inc. and China Development Industrial Bank. Representing the lead fund, Douglas G. Cole, M.D., Senior Principal of Flagship Ventures, joins the CombinatoRx Board of Directors.
"We are pleased to receive one of the largest rounds of financing in the biotech sector this year, and the backing by such a prominent group of global healthcare investors validates our progress to date. We will use the financing to fund the ongoing preclinical and clinical development of our broad portfolio of products and to continue to expand the generation of product leads," said Alexis Borisy, President and CEO of CombinatoRx. "Our focus is to build products, both on our own and in partnership with pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and we are now actively seeking those relationships."
CombinatoRx has created an innovative approach to drug development using a proprietary process called Combination High Throughput Screening (cHTS™), which combines molecules to create new drugs with novel biological activity. By rapidly screening all possible combinations of available compounds to discover novel and unexpected synergies, the Company accelerates the identification of potential new therapies and can replenish the pipelines of pharmaceutical companies. Additionally, the process screens known compounds with established efficacy and safety profiles, reducing the risk of failure so prevalent in the drug discovery and development process. CombinatoRx is the first and only company to screen combinations of compounds at high throughput.
"CombinatoRx has the platform technology to transform existing products and identify potential breakthrough products more efficiently than traditional methods. The Company has used this platform technology to create an early stage portfolio of exciting potential therapies," said
Doug Cole. "The components of many of tomorrow's therapies may already be available in pharmaceutical companies' libraries of compounds, and the potential of any two molecules acting in concert is so vast that it is far more productive to test combinations via the CombinatoRx proprietary process than it is to evaluate compounds one by one."
The cHTS platform technology enables CombinatoRx and its partners to combine known compounds to create new drugs with transformed efficacy and safety profiles, enter new markets with new indications, and extend patent protection. New and maturing brands, as well as shelved products, are candidates for transformation via cHTS.
About CombinatoRx
Founded in the spring of 2000, CombinatoRx has assembled a premier management team and a distinguished group of scientific advisors and is generating a robust pipeline of product candidates useful for treating a broad range of human diseases. For more information, visit www.combinatorx.com.
About Flagship
Founded in 1999, Flagship Ventures is an entrepreneurship and venture capital firm comprised of a family of funds: OneLiberty Funds, AGTC Funds and NewcoGen Group. Flagship currently invests from $400 million in funds raised in 2000, and manages a total pool of committed capital approaching $600 million. The Flagship Ventures team consists of 32 professionals focused on creating, financing, and building companies in the life science, information technology, and communications sectors.
Contacts:
Daniel Grau
Vice President
Corporate Development
CombinatoRx
Phone: 617-425-7000
dgrau@combinatorx.com
Marion Schouten
Vice President
Marketing Communications
Flagship Ventures
Phone: 617-218-1647
mschouten@flagshipventures.com
This press release contains statements that are not strictly historical and are "forward looking" statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This information includes, statements regarding the Company's ability to accelerate the identification of potential new therapies, to reduce the risk of failure prevalent in the drug discovery and development process and the ability to identify breakthrough products more efficiently than traditional methods. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts, and can be identified by, among other things, the use of forward-looking language, such as "believe," "expect," "may," "will," "should" "seeks," "plans," "schedule to," "anticipates" or "intends" or the negative of those terms, or other variations of those terms of comparable language, or by discussions of strategy or intentions. A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or suggested in the forward looking statement including, but not limited to, the ability of the Company to: (i) successfully develop products, (ii) obtain the necessary governmental approvals, (iii) effectively commercialize any products developed before its competitors, (iv) obtain and enforce intellectual property rights and (v) the effect of economic conditions and additional financing requirements. These statements speak only as of the date of this press release and the Company assumes no obligation or responsibility to update or revise the statements.
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