By Kim Coghill

Washington Editor

In its second round of financing, Canada-based Molecular Mining Corp. raised in excess of US$8 million.

Ken Arnold, Molecular Mining¿s vice president of strategy and finance, said the company raised US$2 million in its Series A financing in March 1999.

The Series B round was led by CDP Sofinov, a subsidiary of the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec. Other participating investors were Business Development Bank, of Toronto; Philadelphia-based S.R. One Ltd., a subsidiary of GlaxoSmithKline; Cardinal Partners, of Princeton, N.J.; and CMDF Queen¿s Scientific Breakthrough Fund, of Kingston, Ontario.

S.R. One Limited and Cardinal Partners were co-leaders in Molecular Mining¿s first round of financing.

Molecular Mining, of Kingston, Ontario, specializes in the exploration, inference and prediction of molecular pathways and complex phenotypes from gene expression, proteomics, single nucleotide polymorphisms and high-throughput screening data and the application of these models to diagnostic and drug target identification, predictive toxicology and in silico drug screening.

¿We now have the required resources to commercialize our technology platform by providing products, collaboration services and discoveries to the life sciences market,¿ Evan Steeg, president and CEO of Molecular Mining, said in a prepared statement. ¿Through careful planning and execution, we are putting the necessary resources in place to become the leader in the important field of advanced genomic and cheminformatic data mining.¿

Arnold said the funding should last the company through profitability, expected in two years. Most of the money will be used to pay for hiring about 70 employees with backgrounds in computer science and biology.

Molecular Mining, which currently employs about 30 people, also intends to open a U.S. office, Arnold said.