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Lexington-based biotech company Pulmatrix Inc. has closed on more than $3 million in a recent funding round.
Pulmatrix’s mission is to prevent the spread of airborne and respiratory infectious diseases in animals and humans with a mixed hardware-chemical combination. It was founded in 2003 by scientists from Harvard University and MIT with an eye to creating inhaled drugs and supporting technologies to treat and control disease.
“It’s an exciting new way to use new formulations to prevent diseases from being transmitted from patients to one another,” said co-founder Robert Langer, a high-profile inventor, serial entrepreneur and MIT professor.
Another co-founder is David Edwards, professor of biomedical engineering at Harvard. The company is also using his research. His lab, the Gordon McKay Lab, studies the design and performance of new nano-sized medical aerosols, according to a Harvard website.
Pulmatrix’s website said the company is attempting to use “the inherent properties of the airway and immune system” to offer a single product to combat viral and bacterial infections. This is done without the development of resistance, Pulmatrix claims.
According to U.S. Securities and Exchange documents, dated last month, Pulmatrix secured $3.5 million of a sought-after $4 million in the new round.
Among its initial investors is the venture capital finance firm Polaris Venture Partners in Waltham, which has often financed Langer-connected life sciences startups. Moreover, Polaris director Terry McGuire is listed as a Pulmatrix director. Another investor is 5Am Ventures, a life sciences seed money provider, also based in Waltham.
Pulmatrix declined to comment on the funding.
In January 2008, Pulmatrix announced it was appointing Robert Connelly as its CEO; he was succeeding Pulmatrix’s founding CEO Mark Gabrielson, who remained a director of the company. At that time, Pulmatrix also said it anticipated its lead therapeutic program would enter a Phase 1 clinical trial in the first quarter.
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