Monday, March 30, 2009

Report: Biotech startup said to close on $5M financing

By Marc Songini

Boston-based biotech startup TargAnox Inc. has closed a $5.1 million Series A round, with Partners Innovation Fund LLC, the venture capital unit of Partners HealthCare Inc.  in Boston, putting up $250,000.

New York-based Ascent Biomedical Ventures led the round, providing the majority of capital, according to a report in online publication Xconomy. In addition to investing the quarter of a million dollars, Partners Innovation Fund assisted in creating the initial business strategy for TargAnox, claimed the article, citing Roger Kitterman, acting president of TargAnox.

According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission website, TargAnox filed a Regulation D document, which discloses fund raising, on March 17, 2009.

The company is seeking to treat oxidative stress using technologies from the lab of Joseph Loscalzo, chairman of the department of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, stated the article. This would most likely include biotherapeutics like antibodies.

Loscalzo declined to comment for the article at this time.

Partners Innovation Fund was launched in 2007 by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. Its purpose is to accelerate technologies developed by Partners HealthCare researchers to the market. Structured as a separate entity, the $35 million evergreen fund reinvests all gains from investments back into the fund.