Associate Managing Editor

With an alternative way of producing proteins from plants as a selling point, Biolex Inc. raised $24 million in its latest private round, which it hopes will be its last.

"We had three previous rounds that raised about $9 million," said Jan Turek, Biolex's CEO. "A couple of early rounds were [similar to] seed rounds. This is a large, important round for us because we believe this will take us to our next stage" of development.

Specifically, the money will help Pittsboro, N.C.-based Biolex install and operate GMP facilities to move its proteins into clinical trials, to advance its collaborations and to increase its 35-employee base by about a third. Although Turek said it's difficult to predict future financing markets, the hope is to cut the wooing of venture capitalists out of the equation.

"It's our goal to make this our last round of venture financing as a company," he said. "It may be we have a different type of financing event in a couple of years. But you never know what will happen in this environment."

Biolex's story began at North Carolina State University with Anne-Marie Stomp. She founded the company based on her work in the forestry department and with one patent. Biolex became operational in 1998 and has "broadened the patent landscape since that time," Turek told BioWorld Today. Coming from the biological products business unit of Bayer Corp., where he was senior vice president and general manager, Turek took the role of CEO and, after "we brought in the management team we felt was necessary," Stomp returned to N.C. State, he said.

The company's platform is the Biolex LEX system. Designed for the expression of human therapeutic proteins, it's based on the plant Lemna.

"It combines the natural characteristics of the green aquatic plant Lemna with genetic engineering," Turek said. "The Lemna system gives you what we believe is the desired quality of mammalian cell cultures. [The plant] is clonal, just like mammalian cells, it is fast growing - it doubles in biomass every 36 hours - and we get high protein content."

The desired proteins are secreted from the plant into an aqueous solution and collected. Similar to mammalian cell cultures, the process is done in a controlled environment and has rapid scale-up.

"We can go from gene to founder line in six months," Turek said.

The company's strategy is "to become the premier plant-based protein company," Turek said, and it plans to partner with biotech and pharmaceutical companies on the development of either its own proteins or those from partners. It is focusing on cytokines, peptides and monoclonal antibodies - what Turek called "the sweet spot" of therapeutic proteins.

It has produced 15 proteins from its platform - from all three areas - and has about 10 in its early pipeline. The lead, alpha-interferon, is expected to generate an investigational new drug filing in the next 12 months and could produce clinical results in two years. The exact indication is not yet known, but the production of the protein should be cheaper than the current method, which is through E. coli, Turek said.

The privately held company has four collaborators - Bayer, of Leverkusen, Germany; Centocor Inc., a Johnson & Johnson unit located in Malvern, Pa.; Debiopharm SA, of Lausanne, Switzerland; and an undisclosed pharmaceutical company. A goal the company has set for itself - along with the IND filing, the clinical trials and the GMP facility - is translating those existing collaborations into development agreements.

Turek is particularly pleased with the Biolex management team and its therapeutic protein experience. The team includes David Spencer, the company's chief operating officer, who also has experience at Bayer; and individuals who have logged time at Cephalon Inc., Baxter Healthcare Corp. and Xanthon Inc. He's also quite content with the company's location.

Situated about 30 minutes from the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina and its reputation for medicine, education and science, Pittsboro is a "reverse commute" for employees, and an easy sell.

"We love this location," he said. "We say we are strategically located to the RTP, which has the highest concentration of Ph.D.s per capita in the country. We have no trouble attracting highly skilled people."

With the $24 million raised, it can start reviewing resumes.

The financing was led by Quaker BioVentures, of Philadelphia, and Intersouth Partners, of Durham, N.C. New investors were Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., of New Brunswick, N.J.; Mitsui & Co. Venture Partners, of Tokyo; The Dow Chemical Co., of Midland, Mich.; Dogwood Equity, of Raleigh, N.C.; and Trelys Venture Partners, of Columbus, S.C. Existing investors also participating were The Wakefield Group, of Charlotte, N.C.; Kitty Hawk Capital, of Charlotte; Franklin Street Partners, of Chapel Hill, N.C.; Tall Oaks Capital, of Charlottesville, Va.; and Academy Centennial Fund, of Raleigh.