Trius Therapeutics Inc. quickly moved out from under the radar, disclosing a Series A financing, a new CEO, a new name and the licensing of what now is its lead product.

Trius, of San Diego, raised $20 million in its Series A round, which was led by Sofinnova Ventures. It also gained worldwide rights outside Korea, from Dong-A Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., to a series of antibacterial agents from the oxazolidinone class.

Trius, which had operated under the name Rx3 Pharmaceuticals Inc. since its founding in August 2004, also named Sofinnova partner Jeffrey Stein, an industry veteran, as president and CEO.

John Schmid, chief financial officer at Trius, said the series of moves marks a phase change at the company.

"We're going from a preclinical company to having a product that we intend to file an IND [investigation new drug application] on later this year and go into clinical trials," he told BioWorld Today. "It substantially changes the company."

Terms of the license deal with Seoul, South Korea-based Dong-A were not disclosed.

The lead compound from that deal is TR-701 (also known as DA-7218), which Trius intends to move into Phase I trials this year, Schmid said. The compound is from the oxazolidinone class, which includes the approved Pfizer Inc. drug Zyvox.

Stein, in a press release, said, "Dong-A's impressive preclinical data package on TR-701 indicates that this drug candidate can be developed as a best-in-class oral and intravenous antibiotic for the treatment of patients with serious bacterial infections."

Schmid and Chief Scientific Officer John Finn were among the co-founders of Trius, which formed around work done by Finn, preclinical anti-infective assets from Syrrx Inc. and equipment and instruments acquired from Elitra Pharmaceuticals Inc. Syrrx since was acquired by Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., of Osaka, Japan, while the platform company Elitra was going out of business at the time Trius acquired the technology. Some Elitra personnel joined Trius.

Trius' initial funding came from management and a $3 million, three-year grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases that was earmarked for broad-based work in anti-infectives, including anthrax. Trius in December received two more grants totaling $1.5 million from the NIAID, in the area of anti-bacterials.

The company's discovery technologies for antimicrobial agents include high-throughput crystallography, structure-based drug design and antisense target validation.

TR-701 becomes it lead drug candidate. It also has programs in three other areas: targeting methionyl-tRNA synthetase, or MetRS, a mechanism not used in any commercial antibiotic; developing new DHFR-based antibacterials that circumvent resistance issues, and have activity against a second target; and developing inhibitors of MurA and MurB in the Mur pathway, which plays a role in bacterial cell wall biosynthesis.

Trius said the new funding should allow it to advance TR-701 through Phase IIa trials and move a second program into Phase I development. Schmid said a decision is expected within a few months on which of the three programs will follow TR-701 into clinical development.

"Our plan is to be very focused," Schmid said. "We have three preclinical programs and a fourth that's IND-ready. We have a pretty full plate." He said the company has no plans to expand beyond those programs, but added that with the venture backing the company now has, the right opportunity could present itself.

The Series A funding had its genesis nearly two years ago, Schmid said, when Sofinnova brought on Stein to find an early stage opportunity in antibacterials. At the same time, Stein was soliciting support from other venture capitalists interested in investing in such a company.

The end result was Sofinnova pairing the Dong-A compound with the existing work being done at Trius for its investment, Schmid said. Sofinnova didn't want to form just a virtual company to develop the compound, but instead wanted to place it with an established anti-infectives firm that had its own programs and research capabilities.

Along with Sofinnova, investors in the financing round were InterWest Partners, Prism VentureWorks and Versant Ventures.

Stein was chairman at Trius before his appointment as CEO and president. CSO Finn previously served as president. Trius director, David Kabakoff, was named chairman. Each of the four venture firms placed one member on the board. Trius has 15 employees.

In other financing news:

• Geron Corp., of Menlo Park, Calif., said investors exercised warrants to purchase 1.875 million shares at $8 per share, for gross proceeds of $15 million. The warrants, which expire today, were issued to institutional investors in connection with a $40 million financing announced in December. In that deal, investors also received longer-term warrants exercisable after 180 days to purchase 3 million shares at an undisclosed premium. In conjunction with that warrant exercise, Geron issued new warrants to purchase 1.125 million shares, starting in June, at an undisclosed premium.

• Novogen Ltd., of Sydney, Australia, said its subsidiary, Glycotex Inc., of Rockville, Md., received the first tranche of a private placement. Glycotex received $1.6 million. Investors received shares totaling 3.6 percent of Glycotex. Novogen retained an 81.3 percent interest in Glycotex, which is focused on developing products for wound healing and tissue repair. Funds will support an investigational new drug application filing for its lead drug candidate, the topical gel Glyc-101.

• Theratechnologies Inc., of Montreal, completed a previously announced financing that resulted in gross proceeds of C$57.75 million (US$49.6 million). Theratechnologies sold 6.875 million shares at C$8.40, total, that includes the underwriters' exercise of their overallotment option on 625,000 shares. The offering was made through a syndicate of underwriters led by BMO Capital Markets and including Canaccord Capital, National Bank Financial, Desjardins Securities and Jennings Capital. (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 21, 2007.)