Healthcare Industry News: MRSA
News Release - February 11, 2010
Excelimmune Receives $1 Million in Series-B Funding
WOBURN, Mass.--(HSMN NewsFeed)--Excelimmune, Inc. announced today they have received a $1 million investment as part of an open Series-B financing round. The investment comes from a mixture of existing and new investors. Proceeds from the financing will be used to continue studies of the company’s first drug candidate, Staphguard, a human recombinant polyclonal antibody (HRPA) against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). In September 2009, Excelimmune was awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a HRPA against Clostridium difficile.“We are moving forward on all of our milestones, including completion of another round of animal studies to advance our first HRPA candidate and continued development of a proprietary, automated HRPA development platform to clone and screen human donor-derived antibodies,” said Quinton Zondervan, CEO of Excelimmune.
Excelimmune has successfully completed a pre-clinical mouse study of Staphguard, its first human HRPA therapeutic for MRSA. MRSA is a potentially fatal bacterial infection that is commonly acquired in a hospital or other healthcare setting. It is believed to infect as many as one million patients annually. In order to advance the development of Staphguard towards an IND filing, Excelimmune is partnering with Clinquest, a Healthcare Product Development Service Organization. “We are very excited to help advance this novel and important new therapeutic candidate to address a large unmet medical need,” said Dr. Cornelis Wortel, CMO of Clinquest. HRPAs have emerged as the third generation of antibody therapeutics, a market that is forecasted to reach $40 billion by 2012.
About Human Recombinant Polyclonal Antibodies (HRPAs)
Human recombinant polyclonal antibodies (HRPAs) are mixed populations of therapeutic antibodies that bind to multiple regions (epitopes) on a specific antigen or to multiple antigens of bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms. Monoclonal antibodies, in contrast, bind to only one specific epitope. By binding to multiple regions, polyclonal antibodies allow the body to fight off illness more readily. HRPAs are cloned from naturally occurring human antibodies in a laboratory and then manufactured for human medical use.
About Excelimmune
Excelimmune, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company specializing in the development of recombinant polyclonal antibodies to create novel therapies for treating disease in humans. This next generation technology is applicable to the treatment of diseases and infections caused by common bacteria, disease-causing proteins and viral pathogens. Founded in 2006 by Quinton Zondervan and Vincent Coljee, Excelimmune is a private company located in Woburn, MA. More information regarding Excelimmune can be found at www.excelimmune.com.
Source: Excelimmune
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