TransTech Pharma Inc. has spent a short amount of time building up its bank account.

The High Point, N.C.-based company said Tuesday it raised $24.5 million over the past nine months through two rounds of preferred stock investments, and investors secured options to invest another $10 million this year. TransTech President and CEO Adnan Mjalli pointed to the company's quick development of its technology platform as central to attracting financial backing. Equally important, he pointed to the technology's efficiency.

"It allows us to translate any genomic or proteomic data into safe and effective small molecules as therapeutics," Mjalli told BioWorld Today. "We're able to translate any informational data available about any biological target on the sequence level - just give us a sequence."

He said the Translational Technology combines software modules with chemistry and biology approaches, creating an efficient process for drug development. More specifically, Mjalli said the technology eliminates traditional bottlenecks in the discovery and development process - a need to develop ultra-high-throughput screening and the necessity to screen millions of compounds, as well as requirements associated with virtual chemistry and protein expression.

The most recent investments in TransTech, which raised $14 million in three earlier rounds, came from prior backer MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, as well as Novo Nordisk A/S and Cephalon Inc. New York-based MacAndrews & Forbes remains TransTech's largest shareholder, while Novo and Cephalon made their investments separate from previous research collaborations with TransTech.

Mjalli also pointed to successful applications of its technology as further generating investor interest. He said the company has developed a major asset in its ability to apply its technology against multiple biological targets - both internal and external - and translate them into molecules that are efficacious in vitro and in vivo.

TransTech said it would use a portion of the most recent funding, which should last about two years, to advance a pair of internal programs into clinical trials later this year. The small-molecule antagonists are designed to treat unspecified disease areas through protein-protein interactions.

"We've been able to apply our technology against our own programs and very quickly - in less than a year or so - we've been able to move from a protein sequence of a very difficult biological target into molecules that are approaching Phase I," Mjalli said. "These two programs address major unmet medical needs, and are groundbreaking types of approaches."

TransTech said its Translational Technology platform has shown promise against a range of biological targets, including protein-protein interactions, receptor modulators and enzyme inhibitors. The drug discovery engine has delivered small-molecule preclinical drug candidates to treat diabetes, cancer, inflammation, Alzheimer's disease and thrombosis. Among three preclinical candidates being advanced internally, two are focused on diabetes and obesity.

Founded in 1999, TransTech's technology is the basis of its earlier deals, including two with its recent investors. Its quick development as a company is underscored by the efficiency built into its technology.

"We've been able to take a protein sequence over 24 hours and devise potential 3-D structures," Mjalli said. "Each proposed 3-D structure would have potential multiple bindings sites, and we are able to verify all of that and arrive at leads within weeks, not months."

Last summer, West Chester, Pa.-based Cephalon, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, entered a multiyear collaboration using the Translational Technology to discover and develop small molecules for up to three therapeutic targets.

"We have identified molecules that are working in vitro at this time," Mjalli said.

Cephalon has the exclusive right to develop and commercialize all compounds directed at each of the targets covered by the collaboration. TransTech would receive payments upon the achievement of specified research, clinical and commercialization milestones. In addition, TransTech would receive royalties on future product sales. (See BioWorld Today, June 24, 2002.)

A year earlier, TransTech signed a five-year deal with Bagsvaerd, Denmark-based Novo to develop clinical candidates for five Novo targets. The arrangement, for which no financial terms were disclosed, was expanded later in the year to include new diabetes targets. (See BioWorld Today, Aug. 7, 2001, and Dec. 3, 2001.)

"We have identified a series of proprietary small molecules that are headed toward the preclinical stage," Mjalli said.

More recently, TransTech in October formed a drug discovery collaboration with New York-based SIGA Technologies Inc., combining Translational Technology with SIGA's biological targets to seek small-molecule therapeutics to treat infectious diseases. The companies are focusing on discovering classes of anti-infectives to treat infectious diseases, including smallpox and anthrax. They are sharing costs and any generated revenues.