Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Raises $50 Million in Series C Financing
New Haven, Connecticut. June 20, 2006 — Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,
a privately held biopharmaceutical company focused on designing and
developing next generation antibiotics, today announced that it has
raised $50 million in Series C Preferred Stock financing. The round
was led by existing investor Warburg Pincus, the global private
equity investment firm. This latest round of financing brings the
total amount raised by the company, since its inception in 2001, to
$123 million.
In addition to Warburg Pincus, participants in the financing included existing investors: ABS Ventures, Axiom Venture Partners, Cardinal Partners, EuclidSR Partners, Oxford Bioscience Partners and SR One, Limited. Two new investors joined the round: MedImmune Ventures, Inc. and Radius Ventures. In conjunction with the financing Dr. Wayne T. Hockmeyer, President of MedImmune Ventures and Chairman of MedImmune, Inc., will join the Rib-X Board of Directors, bringing the total number of board members to nine.
"I am gratified by the interest in Rib-X from these distinguished new investors and am particularly proud of the support shown by our existing shareholders," said Dr. Susan Froshauer, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rib-X. "These new funds will fuel the advancement of our two active clinical stage programs and further the build out of our pipeline of new antibiotic clinical candidates derived from the Company's proprietary high-resolution X-ray crystallography and computational chemistry technologies."
"In the last three years, Rib-X has transitioned from a promising, technology platform venture to a leading, clinical stage antibiotics company," commented Stewart Hen, a Warburg Pincus managing director. "The company now has important products in development to treat the serious unmet need of drug resistant bacteria in both the hospital and outpatient settings. We believe Rib-X is positioned to redefine the antibiotics landscape in the future with novel drugs from its proprietary engine: drugs that could not readily be developed using traditional approaches to antibiotic drug discovery."
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.
In addition to Warburg Pincus, participants in the financing included existing investors: ABS Ventures, Axiom Venture Partners, Cardinal Partners, EuclidSR Partners, Oxford Bioscience Partners and SR One, Limited. Two new investors joined the round: MedImmune Ventures, Inc. and Radius Ventures. In conjunction with the financing Dr. Wayne T. Hockmeyer, President of MedImmune Ventures and Chairman of MedImmune, Inc., will join the Rib-X Board of Directors, bringing the total number of board members to nine.
"I am gratified by the interest in Rib-X from these distinguished new investors and am particularly proud of the support shown by our existing shareholders," said Dr. Susan Froshauer, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rib-X. "These new funds will fuel the advancement of our two active clinical stage programs and further the build out of our pipeline of new antibiotic clinical candidates derived from the Company's proprietary high-resolution X-ray crystallography and computational chemistry technologies."
"In the last three years, Rib-X has transitioned from a promising, technology platform venture to a leading, clinical stage antibiotics company," commented Stewart Hen, a Warburg Pincus managing director. "The company now has important products in development to treat the serious unmet need of drug resistant bacteria in both the hospital and outpatient settings. We believe Rib-X is positioned to redefine the antibiotics landscape in the future with novel drugs from its proprietary engine: drugs that could not readily be developed using traditional approaches to antibiotic drug discovery."
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.
| 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 |