BioWorld International Correspondent

DUBLIN, Ireland - ThromboGenics Ltd. raised US$12.8 million from Boston-based East Hill Advisors LLC, raising its post-money valuation to US$82.8 million.

The company, which has raised US$27 million to date, plans to use the funds to advance its cardiovascular drug development programs and its platform technology in embryonic stem cell methods.

ThromboGenics boasts a strong scientific base. Chairman and CEO Desire Collen is a biotechnology industry pioneer, who licensed tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) to Genentech Inc., of South San Francisco, in 1983. ThromboGenics derives an annual royalty income of approximately US$5 million from this deal, having acquired last year the not-for-profit Belgian company Thromb-X NV, in which rights to t-PA were vested.

ThromboGenics has three Phase II clinical trials under way involving two drug candidates. Its lead compound, PEG-Sak, a recombinant staphylokinase derivative with a polyethylene glycol tag, is being developed for single-bolus intravenous administration to patients with acute myocardial infarction. SY162, a variant of the fibrin-specific thrombolytic enzyme staphylokinase, is undergoing assessment in two indications, peripheral arterial occlusive disorder (PAOD) and central venous catheter (CVC) occlusion, which can arise in patients fitted with a CVC.

The latter market is valued between US$50 million and US$100 million annually, according to Randall Moreadith, who is co-founder, president and chief operating officer of ThromboGenics. But the other two indications each represent a billion-dollar market opportunity.

ThromboGenics is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, where it was incorporated in December 1998. However, its scientific base is in Belgium. Collen runs his own private research institute near Brussels and has an academic chair at the Catholic University of Leuven. Moreadith, a cardiologist who has worked in academia and with Quintiles Transnational Corp., of Research Triangle Park, N.C., is based in Chapel Hill, N.C.

The company is locating financial, legal and regulatory functions in Dublin, Moreadith told BioWorld International, and it will manage its clinical programs here also. "In the future we intend to acquire capacity in Ireland on the contract manufacturing side, either through an alliance or acquisition," he added.

In addition to its three clinical programs, ThromboGenics has five more compounds in preclinical development, for treatment of stroke, peripheral arterial disease and acute coronary syndromes. A neurodegenerative disease program is at an earlier stage.

The company has developed a proprietary method for creating knockout mice, which enables it to identify and functionally validate target genes rapidly. "Our laboratory has knocked out over 50 genes in mice," Moreadith said. He is unaware, he added, of any single laboratory that has created and completely characterized more knockout mice.

The technique is based on a proprietary medium that enables researchers to derive germ line-competent embryonic stem cells from multiple inbred mouse strains and possibly other species. This obviates the need for creating a knockout mouse in a standard strain, and then performing backcrosses with the strain of interest. ThromboGenics plans to license this technology to third parties or to provide access to it on a commercial basis, Moreadith said.

The company aims to enter its first two Phase III clinical trials within two years. It hopes to raise sufficient cash from an IPO to fund these efforts. It plans to raise between US$40 million and US$50 million in a pre-IPO private placement. "We do not feel we need to rush to go public," Moreadith said. "We will go public when we have something of extraordinary value to offer our shareholders and can be reasonably certain our programs will generate substantial revenue for the company."