Friday, January 9, 2009

Kolltan Pharmaceuticals raises $35M, names CEO

By Mass High Tech staff

Kolltan Pharmaceuticals Inc., a New Haven, Conn.-based oncology therapeutics company, has raised more than $35 million in Series A round of preferred stock funding. The financing comes in tandem with the company’s hiring announcement of Michael Schmertzler as CEO and director of the company and Yaron Hadari as vice president of research.

Investors in the first funding round include Purdue Pharma LP, HBM Capital Partners, the Pritzker/Vlock family and private life science financiers. The funding will be used to develop the company’s receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) targets, which regulate key cell processes and play a pivotal role in tumor formation, according to the company. The technology is based on research conducted by Joseph Schlessinger, Kolltan co-founder and chief scientist and chairman of the department of pharmacology at Yale University.

New Kolltan CEO and director Schmertzler is chairman of PTC Therapeutics Inc. and director of Cytokinetics Inc. He founded Morgan Stanley’s biotechnology investment banking business, headed a Credit Suisse private equity fund, served as president of the Morgan Stanley Private Capital Funds and has held various other positions at Morgan Stanley, as well as Lehman Brothers in this early career.

Before joining Kolltan, Hadari worked as senior director of the cell biology department at ImClone Systems Inc., managing developments in anti-cancer therapeutics.

Kolltan Pharmaceuticals was co-founded by Schlessinger and Arthur G. Altschul, Jr., founder of Diaz and Altschul Capital Management, a private investment advisory firm.