BioWorld International Correspondent

PARIS - Marseille, France-based start-up Pharmaxon raised seed funding of more than 500,000 (US$636,697) from four European venture capital funds.

Three investors acquired equity stakes: Inserm Transfert Initiative, the venture capital arm of the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research in Paris; Esperante, a Hoofddorp, the Netherlands-based fund that operates out of offices in Paris; and Primaveris, of Marseille. In addition, CAAP Création, a subsidiary of Crédit Agricole Alpes Provence, advanced a participatory loan.

The CEO and co-founder of Pharmaxon, Pascal Deschaseaux, told BioWorld International that he could not disclose how much each had contributed, but added that the company also had been granted loans totalling 450,000 from the French National Research Promotion Agency (ANVAR) and was receiving a small amount of funding from a European Union research program.

Pharmaxon was incorporated in September 2004 as a spin-off from the Development Biology Institute of Marseille-Luminy, which still houses it. The company is developing compounds that target neuroplasticity, the term for the nerve cell's spontaneous ability to build up and/or modify intercellular connections after nervous system trauma or during neurodegenerative diseases in order to recreate new and functional neuronal networks.

The company said adhesion molecules are key players in the mechanisms that convert cell-surface triggers into sensible and sensitive intracellular responses. They also can be related to the processes underlying tumor progression and metastasis through a decrease in tumor cell adhesiveness, which is strongly correlated with the ability of a tumor to spread into surrounding tissues or to other parts of the body.

The Marseille Developmental Biology Institute was part of a network of research centers that identified new molecules with the potential to modify cell adhesiveness/migration and enhance axonal growth through the modulation of adhesion molecules. By targeting some of those adhesion molecules, Pharmaxon is exploiting a new approach to the treatment of nervous system lesions, degenerative diseases and tumors.

Deschaseaux pointed out that the company had three compounds in its portfolio and is engaged in four research programs (since one is being developed for two indications). The first class of drug candidates are designed to stimulate neuroplasticity by producing positive effects on motor activity and memory. That mechanism of action was established in animal models of spinal cord injury and aging and Pharmaxon plans to launch a first clinical trial in humans in the indication of spinal cord injury in 2008.

Another category of compounds it is developing is designed to modulate cell mobility. They can thus contribute to reducing the migration of cancer cells and the invasion of tissues surrounding a tumor. In an animal model, these compounds demonstrated a high capacity for inhibiting the growth of a glioblastoma, a highly invasive brain cancer.

Describing Pharmaxon's approach as "truly innovative," Deschaseaux stressed the fact that it was targeting a mixture of niche and mass markets. He explained that the seed funding it had raised would enable the company to take its lead compound into preclinical development and would carry it until the middle of 2007. Pharmaxon employs 11 people.