Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Completes $63.5 Million Series B Financing
New Haven, Connecticut. May 1, 2003 — Rib-X Pharmaceuticals,
Inc., a privately held biotechnology company focused on the discovery
of novel anti-infectives, announced today the completion of a $63.5
million Series B Preferred Stock financing, in a round led by Warburg
Pincus, a leading private equity investor in healthcare. This brings
the total amount raised by the Company, since its inception in 2000,
to more than $73.0 million.
Warburg Pincus, a new investor, led the Series B Financing with a $31.0 million investment. All of the Company's previous investors also participated in this round; they include: Axiom Venture Partners, Cardinal Partners, Connecticut Innovations, EuclidSR Partners, Oxford Bioscience Partners, SR One, Limited, and Zero Stage Capital.
"We are proud to have merited this level of investor confidence from such a distinguished group of investors, particularly given current market conditions, and believe it demonstrates the potential of our technology and our success in implementing our business plan," said Dr. Susan Froshauer, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rib-X. "We thank our existing shareholders, as well as Warburg Pincus for their support."
The financing consisted of $51.0 million of new funding received today from new and existing investors, in addition to the receipt of $12.5 million committed capital from investors who participated in Rib-X's earlier venture round.
"Utilizing less than $10 million from our initial fund raising and in a year and one-half, we have established the Company, assembled a top-tier, multifaceted research and development team and initiated several parallel candidate generation programs," added Dr. Froshauer. "We are confident that the infusion of the $63.5 million will power our discovery and development efforts to pursue several series of compounds into Phase II clinical trials."
In conjunction with the financing, the Company also announced that Stewart Hen and Jonathan Leff, both Managing Directors of Warburg Pincus will be joining the Rib-X Board of Directors effective immediately, bringing the total number of board members to seven.
"Rib-X has made tremendous progress since it began its discovery programs approximately eighteen months ago," said Mr. Hen. "We believe the Company's technology platform has the potential to generate fundamentally new classes of antibiotics that cannot be developed using traditional drug discovery approaches. If successful, these compounds will provide important new weapons for physicians to address the rapidly growing problem of resistant organisms in both the hospital and community settings. We look forward to working with Rib-X to maximize the Company's potential."
About Rib-X Pharmaceuticals
Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a product-driven small-molecule drug discovery and development company focused on developing and commercializing antibiotics to treat highly-resistant bacterial infections. Based in New Haven, Connecticut, the Company has raised over $170 million and has two programs, delafloxacin and radezolid, in advanced clinical trials. In addition, a preclinical program featuring an entirely new class of broad-spectrum antibiotics with the potential to treat even highly- resistant Gram-negative infections is scheduled to begin clinical trials in 2011.
Rib-X designs and develops novel small-molecule antibiotics by leveraging the Company's Nobel Prize- winning discovery platform to perform structure-based design and optimization. While many commercially valuable classes of antibiotics bind to the bacterial ribosome, including oxazolidinones, tetracyclines and macrolides, traditional antibiotic discovery relies heavily on serendipity. Rib-X's key competitive advantage is its proprietary understanding of ribosome structure, which enables it to generate antibiotics that overcome known resistance mechanisms and have broad-spectrum activity.
Rib-X's integrated research strategy combines state-of-the-art, proprietary computational analysis, X-ray crystallography, medicinal chemistry, microbiology and biochemistry, thereby allowing Rib-X to rapidly synthesize new agents designed to avoid typical antibiotic resistance mechanisms. Rib-X's iterative intelligent engine has yielded several distinct new antibiotic classes.
About Warburg Pincus
Warburg Pincus is a global private equity firm and a leading investor in healthcare, biotechnology, and specialty pharmaceuticals. Since 1971, Warburg Pincus has sponsored ten private equity investment funds with committed capital in excess of $19 billion. The firm is currently investing its eighth global fund, Warburg Pincus Private Equity VIII, which had a final closing in April 2002 at $5.3 billion. Warburg Pincus has invested more than $800 million in the biotechnology industry and helped to build more than 40 biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies spanning a broad range of technologies and stages of development. For more information, please visit our website at www.warburgpincus.com.
Warburg Pincus, a new investor, led the Series B Financing with a $31.0 million investment. All of the Company's previous investors also participated in this round; they include: Axiom Venture Partners, Cardinal Partners, Connecticut Innovations, EuclidSR Partners, Oxford Bioscience Partners, SR One, Limited, and Zero Stage Capital.
"We are proud to have merited this level of investor confidence from such a distinguished group of investors, particularly given current market conditions, and believe it demonstrates the potential of our technology and our success in implementing our business plan," said Dr. Susan Froshauer, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rib-X. "We thank our existing shareholders, as well as Warburg Pincus for their support."
The financing consisted of $51.0 million of new funding received today from new and existing investors, in addition to the receipt of $12.5 million committed capital from investors who participated in Rib-X's earlier venture round.
"Utilizing less than $10 million from our initial fund raising and in a year and one-half, we have established the Company, assembled a top-tier, multifaceted research and development team and initiated several parallel candidate generation programs," added Dr. Froshauer. "We are confident that the infusion of the $63.5 million will power our discovery and development efforts to pursue several series of compounds into Phase II clinical trials."
In conjunction with the financing, the Company also announced that Stewart Hen and Jonathan Leff, both Managing Directors of Warburg Pincus will be joining the Rib-X Board of Directors effective immediately, bringing the total number of board members to seven.
"Rib-X has made tremendous progress since it began its discovery programs approximately eighteen months ago," said Mr. Hen. "We believe the Company's technology platform has the potential to generate fundamentally new classes of antibiotics that cannot be developed using traditional drug discovery approaches. If successful, these compounds will provide important new weapons for physicians to address the rapidly growing problem of resistant organisms in both the hospital and community settings. We look forward to working with Rib-X to maximize the Company's potential."
About Rib-X Pharmaceuticals
Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a product-driven small-molecule drug discovery and development company focused on developing and commercializing antibiotics to treat highly-resistant bacterial infections. Based in New Haven, Connecticut, the Company has raised over $170 million and has two programs, delafloxacin and radezolid, in advanced clinical trials. In addition, a preclinical program featuring an entirely new class of broad-spectrum antibiotics with the potential to treat even highly- resistant Gram-negative infections is scheduled to begin clinical trials in 2011.
Rib-X designs and develops novel small-molecule antibiotics by leveraging the Company's Nobel Prize- winning discovery platform to perform structure-based design and optimization. While many commercially valuable classes of antibiotics bind to the bacterial ribosome, including oxazolidinones, tetracyclines and macrolides, traditional antibiotic discovery relies heavily on serendipity. Rib-X's key competitive advantage is its proprietary understanding of ribosome structure, which enables it to generate antibiotics that overcome known resistance mechanisms and have broad-spectrum activity.
Rib-X's integrated research strategy combines state-of-the-art, proprietary computational analysis, X-ray crystallography, medicinal chemistry, microbiology and biochemistry, thereby allowing Rib-X to rapidly synthesize new agents designed to avoid typical antibiotic resistance mechanisms. Rib-X's iterative intelligent engine has yielded several distinct new antibiotic classes.
About Warburg Pincus
Warburg Pincus is a global private equity firm and a leading investor in healthcare, biotechnology, and specialty pharmaceuticals. Since 1971, Warburg Pincus has sponsored ten private equity investment funds with committed capital in excess of $19 billion. The firm is currently investing its eighth global fund, Warburg Pincus Private Equity VIII, which had a final closing in April 2002 at $5.3 billion. Warburg Pincus has invested more than $800 million in the biotechnology industry and helped to build more than 40 biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies spanning a broad range of technologies and stages of development. For more information, please visit our website at www.warburgpincus.com.
| Public Relations |
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Kari Watson
MacDougall BioMedical Communications 781-235-3060 kari@macbiocom.com |
| Investor Relations |
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Sarah Cavanaugh
MacDougall BioMedical Communications 781-235-3060 scavanaugh@macbiocom.com |