Inviragen | Series A $15M and M&A

Inviragen (Ft. Collins, CO) a preclinical-stage vaccine company focused on emerging global infectious diseases, closed a $15M Series A financing and in the process merged the assets of Singapore-based SingVax. Participants in the round include Charter Life Sciences, Venture Investors, Bio*One Capital and Phillip Private Equity. This initial round of institutional capital comes on the heels of a $600,000 grant, announced in September, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease to partially support continued development of a dengue vaccine.

The new funding is expected to push a number of vaccine candidates into the clinic and yield proof-of-concept and efficacy data. The lead vax is designed to protect against dengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease that threatens 3.6 billion people living in tropical and subtropical regions around the globe; 36 million cases of dengue fever are thought to occur per year WW, the most severe form of the disease, dengue hemorrhagic fever, leads to the deaths of approximately 20,000 people annually.

Rounding out the robust Inviragen pipeline include vaccines against Hand, Foot and Mouth disease, Japanese encephalitis, West Nile, chikungunya, avian- (H5N1) and swine-origin (H1N1) influenza and, a combination plague and smallpox vaccine for biodefense.

Tape-Delay from the RMLSIC | Part Deux

Continuing here with Part Deux of the Rocky Mountain Life Science Investor Conference presenting companies. Yesterday CLSDF posted the Diagnostic oriented entities, today we feature the biopharma folks.

ApopLogic – Aurora, CO-based AL is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, and development of therapeutic products that target apoptotic cell death pathways found in cancers, leukemias and lymphomas. The lead compound is Breceptin, a novel anti-cancer technology that antagonizes neuropeptide growth-factor receptors, targeting a broad range of cancers. The pipeline also includes Fasaret a proprietary therapy based on Fas ligand, an apoptotic cell death-inducing molecule with unique pro- inflammatory properties and Cytonil a proprietary combination of a cell-type specific growth factor and a cell signaling agonist to treat Sezary leukemia, cutaneous T cell lymphoma and psoriasis.

Allogenesis – Denver, CO-based AG is focused on pHPM, a ‘humanized’ purification of blood extracts for expansion of stem cells used for research & clinical applicications as well as wound healing in the dermal, orthopedic and additional soft tissue applications. The pHPM product is engineered to replace animal proteins in stem cell culture applications and augment existing in vitro culture media.

BioAmps – Aurora, CO-based BA is focused on focused on the discovery and development of proprietary antimicrobial peptide therapeutic solutions for the treatment of systemic infectious diseases, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other resistant gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. A rational design platform has produced a large portfolio of D-confirmation, alpha-helical antimocrobial peptides that are structurally manipulated to alter their hydrophobicity and amphipathicity properties. The charge substitutions and structure alterations on both the polar and non-polar faces of the peptides produce a unique “carpeted model” mechanism of action, broad spectrum of activity, and low level of toxicity to human cells.

GlobeImmune – Louisville, CO-based GI develops active immunotherapies called Tarmogens® for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. Tarmogens are recombinant yeast engineered to express disease antigens. Lead products include GI4000 and GI5005 both in Phase II for cancer and hepatitis C. The Tarmogen™ manufacturing process is simple and scalable with small molecule-like margins.

Inviragen – Ft. Collins, CO-based IV is focused on vaccines against emerging worldwide infectious diseases. Compounds queued up for clinical trials includes DENVax against dengue, HFMDVax against hand, foot and mouth disease and JEVax for Japanese encephalitis. In addition, are a number of ongoing vaccine research programs in chikungunya, HPV, influenza and plague vaccines.

LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals – Bozeman, MT-based LCP is a clinical-stage biologic drug development company focused on respiratory and gastrointestinal indications. The company’s virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine technologies support products that induce robust immune responses to prevent serious infections. The lead product is Norovirus VLP Vax in Phase I and the pipeline includes the biodefense vaccines against influenza and anthrax and the monoclonal antibodies Anti-CD103 partnered with Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB) and Anti-CD62 partnered with NIH.

miRagen – Boulder, CO-based MR is developing innovative microRNA (miRNA) based therapeutics for cardiovascular and muscle disease. The lead optimization pre-clinical pipeline candidates are focused on heart failure with indications of post-MI remodeling, chronic heart failure and refractory angina; broader cardiovascular disease including cardiac fibrosis, angioplasty/restenosis and arrhythmia; and, general fibrosis, muscular atrophy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Myocept – Lafayette, CO-based MC is a pre-clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on biotherapeutics designed to modulate signal transduction through subtypes of the cholinergic receptor family (AChR). The receptors targeted control contraction of skeletal and smooth muscle fibers, while other members of the AChR family are involved in angiogenesis, pain, additiction, down-regulation of inflammatory immune responses and progression of certain cancers.

Western States Biopharma – Aurora, CO-based WSB is a pre-clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapies that selectively modulate adaptive immunity to treat inflammatory diseases while concurrently affecting the immune system’s natural ability to fight disease. Potential lead indications under consideration for WSBI19711A include rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, ulcerative colitis, and anklyosing spondylitis.

InViragen: Two Steps Forward

InViragen (Ft. Collins) is committed to developing life-saving vaccines to protect against emerging infectious diseases worldwide and continues on a very positive trajectory. Building upon last years $2.7M NIH Dengue vax grant InViragen has now confirmed financial support from the Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative. This non-dilutive financing will enable the manufacture of the Dengue vax, in collaboration with Shantha Biotechnics, for use in human clinical trials. Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne illness, prevalent in tropical and subtropical countries throughout the world, approximately 3.5 billion people live in the endemic region and roughly 100 million people are infected with Dengue each year, according to recent published estimates. In addition, a $600,000 NIH grant was recently awarded for the construction and testing of a novel vax against the H5N1 Avain Influenza virus. Dan Stinchcomb, President & CEO of InViragen continues to orchestrate a robust product pipeline that in addition to the Dengue and Avain Influenza vaccines also includes advancing pre-clinical studies of West Nile, Plague and Smallpox vaccines.

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InViragen Making Inroads

Congratulations to Dr. Dan Stinchcomb, President & CEO and the entire team at InViragen (Ft. Collins) on their new partnership with the Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative, to help develop and manufacture a dengue vaccine to be made widely available for the global prevention of dengue fever, the second most prevalent tropical disease after malaria.

Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease that is a potential threat to about half of the world’s population (3.5 billion people) living in tropical and subtropical countries. About 100 million people are infected with dengue every year. The disease is spreading to new parts of the globe each year (recent outbreaks in Paraguay and the Middle East). In addition, dengue affects countries such as Australia (Queensland) and the United States (Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the US-affiliated Pacific Islands). A substantial number of people traveling to or working in endemic regions are also infected each year.

InViragen: Agreemnent with Shantha Bio

InViragen (Ft. Collins), who is developing vaccines against emerging world-wide diseases such as West Nile, avian influenza, plague and smallpox, has announced a vaccine manufacturing agreement with Shantha Biotechnics (Hyderabad, India) to develop their lead dengue vax product to enable completion of preclinical studies and initiate safety and efficacy clinical trials.

Since winning the first Faegre & Benson Venture Showcase Award at the 2005 BioWest Conference in Denver, led by Dan Stinchcomb, President & CEO, InViragen has continued to meet milestones.

Dengue viruses threaten over one third of the world’s population, and cause an estimated 100 – 150 million cases of dengue fever every year. Inviragen’s dengue vaccine was designed by collaborators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to protect against all four of the dengue viruses. The vaccine has been shown to be safe and effective in preclinical animal models.

InViragen: Fighting Flaviviruses

InViragen, LLC was formed by Dr. Dan Stinchcomb to identify promising Dengue and West Nile vaccine technologies. The business plan calls for the completion of preclinical and Phase 1 and 2 clinical development., the vaccines then will be licensed to major pharmaceutical companies for Phase 3 clinical studies, manufacturing and marketing in the US and Europe. Through its collaborators, InViragen will complete clinical trials, manufacture and market the vaccines for the developing world and for biodefense. Using the same hybrid virus technology developed for the dengue vaccine, InViragen's collaborators at the CDC engineered a novel West Nile vaccine. The vaccine has protected mice from disease in preclinical studies. With its collaborators at the CDC, InViragen is selecting final vaccine candidates and formations and will initiate pivotal preclinical studies. Financing, to date, has been solely from the founders' private funds and is seeking seed funding of $250,000 to complete the dengue and West Nile vaccine development plans, support patent costs and begin to grow the organization.