By Cormac Sheridan

BioWorld Today Correspondent

Molecular Partners AG, which is commercializing a protein scaffold technology, raised CHF46 million (US$44.2 million) in a Series B financing round led by Essex Woodlands Health Ventures, taking its total investment raised in the past two and a half years to CHF64.5 million.

The Schlieren, Switzerland-based company will use the proceeds to take its lead drug candidate, a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) antagonist called MP0112, into clinical proof-of-concept trials in two ophthalmology indications.

"We're basically expecting this to enter the clinic in the coming weeks or months," CEO Christian Zahnd told BioWorld Today.

The company is filing investigational new drug applications on each side of the Atlantic and aims to begin Phase I studies in the first quarter of the new year. It will pursue development of the drug in diabetic macular edema in the U.S. and in age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in Europe.

Ophthalmology is already quite a crowded space for VEGF antagonists.

For the nine months ended Sept. 30, Basel, Switzerland-based Roche Holding AG reported CHF869 million in sales of Lucentis (ranibizumab), an antibody fragment approved for wet AMD.

Two other "post-antibody" platform firms also are targeting the area.

The ophthalmology unit of ESBAtech AG, of Zurich, Switzerland, recently acquired by Alcon Inc., of Hunenberg, Switzerland, for $150 million in cash, plus $439 million in milestones, is developing an antibody fragment that can be administered via eye drops.

Freising-Weihenstephan, Germany-based, Pieris AG recently entered a development pact with Allergan Inc., of Irvine, Calif., under which the latter firm is getting access to Pieris' Anticalin technology in all ophthalmology indications.

But, based on preclinical observations, Molecular Partners believes its molecule can be best in class.

"What we are seeing is significantly less frequent dosing via injection to the eye. It could be as little as every three to four months," Zahnd said.

Lucentis, in contrast, needs to be administered every four weeks.

Its new investor, which closed out its eighth fund at $900 million in March, agreed.

"We've looked very hard at the novel scaffold space, and we've placed our bets accordingly," Toby Sykes at the London office of Essex Woodlands Health Ventures, told BioWorld Today.

"We were blown away by the speed with which their technology has produced clinical candidates in record time, ahead of their own timelines and expectations," Sykes said.

The company has hit multiple development and commercial milestones since closing its first round in mid-2007.

Back then, it was still at a very early stage, Zahnd said. "Our pipeline was basically a platform and an idea."

As well as developing a pipeline of candidate drugs since then, it has hit all of the milestones ahead of schedule in a drug discovery and development alliance with Horsham, Pa.-based Centocor Inc., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.

Molecular Partners, co-founded by antibody pioneer Andreas Plueckthun, of the University of Zurich, is developing protein therapeutics based on its Designed Ankyrin Repeat Protein (DARPin) format.

Those exploit repeat structures found in ankyrins, which are ubiquitously expressed intracellular adaptor proteins that play a variety of structural and functional roles.

It engineers diversity into the scaffold by altering up to seven amino acid residues per protein.

The resulting proteins have antibody-like binding properties but are much smaller and therefore offer high tissue penetration.

They also are highly stable and can be manufactured in bacterial expression systems.

"We think DARPins can be taken into whole new areas of biology that are currently not open to protein therapeutics - that is the investment thesis," Sykes said.

Part of the funding will be used to move forward the company's pipeline of earlier stage compounds in development for indications in inflammation, oncology and other disease areas.

In addition to Essex, all of the company's Series A investors followed their money, including Geneva-based Index Ventures; BB Biotech Ventures, of Zurich; Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., the venture capital arm of New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson Co.; and Endeavour Vision, of Geneva.

In other financing news:

• CalciMedica Inc., of La Jolla, Calif., closed the second tranche of its $12 million Series C financing led by Biogen Idec New Ventures, with participating from Sanderling Ventures and SR one. The first tranche was closed in November 2008. CalciMedica, which develops small-molecule inhibitors of CRAC channels for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, has raised a total of $19 million to date.

• Hybrigenics SA, of Paris, closed a €2.735 million (US$4 million) private placement. A total of 1.09 million shares priced at €2.50 each were sold to investors, marking a 15 percent discount from the mean of the volume-weighted average prices of the last five trading days prior to the transaction's close. Funds are intended to complement the Yorkville equity line facility established in October and will help support preparation for the upcoming Phase IIb trial of inecalcitol in hormone-refractory prostate cancer. Invest Securities was the placement agent and bookrunner.

• SIGA Technologies Inc., of New York, closed its offering of 2.7 million shares of common stock priced at $7.35 each for net proceeds of about $18.6 million. Those funds will be used for general corporate purposes, including development of product candidates, the acquisition or in-licensing of technologies, products or businesses, working capital and capital expenditures. RBC Capital Markets served as lead placement agent, while Cowen and Co. LLC acted as co-agent.