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June 24, 2003 |
Media Contact
Karen Roberson
For KaloBios
(415) 228-3395
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KaloBios Completes $4 Million in Seed
Funding from Sofinnova Ventures
and Alloy Ventures
KaloBios’ growth is further accelerated by federal grants and claims allowed
on pivotal patents.
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – June 24, 2003 – KaloBios, a therapeutic antibody company and developer of proprietary platforms for the discovery of therapeutic proteins and antibodies, announced today the closing of a seed investment round of $4 million. Sofinnova Ventures and Alloy Ventures participated in the financing. Jim Healy, M.D., Ph.D., Managing Director of Sofinnova Ventures, and Doug Kelly, M.D., General Partner of Alloy Ventures, serve on KaloBios’ board.
Mark Alfenito, Ph.D., President of KaloBios, remarked, “We are pleased that KaloBios now has the resources to continue refining its unencumbered discovery and engineering platform, not only for the development of our internal pipeline of antibody therapeutics, but also for the development of potential collaborators’ pipelines.”
KaloBios uses for its antibody discovery and development a suite of engineered proteins that track the interaction of target proteins in cells. The company’s intellectual property covers its broad base platform technology for antibody and protein engineering.
Commenting on why KaloBios is a compelling investment, Healy said, “Antibody therapeutics is an emerging and validated drug class that is hampered by inefficient means for screening and optimizing antibody efficacy. KaloBios’ technology to design better antibodies solves many of the bottlenecks in the antibody drug development process.”
“We are excited to be involved with a company that could have such a huge impact on the potency and cost-effectiveness of human antibody drugs and diagnostics,”
added Kelly. “KaloBios has built an extremely robust technology platform in a very short amount of time on a very small amount of capital. It is a tribute to the creativity of the company's scientists and management.”
About KaloBios
KaloBios uses its unique and proprietary technologies for the development of its pipeline of antibody therapeutics. Such uses include de novo discovery of high-affinity human antibodies, as well as optimization of antibodies and other therapeutic proteins with respect to many important properties, including specificity, stability, ‘on’ rate, and ‘off’ rate. To fully leverage the value of its technology platform, KaloBios is becoming vertically integrated, with the capability to discover, engineer and develop clinically relevant antibodies, protein therapeutics, and small molecules. For more information, visit www.kalobios.com.
About Sofinnova Ventures
Sofinnova Ventures is part of a trans-Atlantic organization that was founded in 1972. Based in San Francisco, Sofinnova Ventures emphasizes a diversified investment strategy through financing seed and early-stage companies in the life science, communications and information technology sectors. Historically, Sofinnova Ventures has been associated with leading companies such as Biogen, Collagen, Genentech, Printronix, Tandon and Tandem Computers. More recently, Sofinnova has invested in Actelion, Aviron, InterMune Pharmaceuticals, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Phone.com,
Premisys, Nishan Systems and Tumbleweed. For more information, visit www.sofinnova.com.
About Alloy Ventures
Alloy Ventures invests primarily in seed and early stage companies in information technology and the life sciences. The firm's partners all have entrepreneurial experience, and have decades of seed and early-stage venture capital experience. They have helped start and foster more than 200 companies, including Amgen, Applied Biosystems (acquired by Perkin Elmer), Archive (acquired by Conner), Aviron (acquired by MedImmune), Conductus, CV Therapeutics, Red Brick Systems (acquired by Informix), Remedy (acquired by Peregrine Systems). For more information, visit www.alloyventures.com. |
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