LONDON - PanTherix Ltd. raised #10.25 million (US$15.1 million) in a second-round funding, allowing it to advance several of its novel antibacterial small-molecule compounds from preclinical to Phase II studies.

CEO Cameron Macdonald told BioWorld International, "We are pleased with what we have raised. It is in line with what we hoped, though it took some time to get there."

The financing round was led by MB Venture Capital and Scottish Equity Partners. The Merlin Biosciences Fund and the Merlin Fund invested #3.4 million.

PanTherix, of Glasgow, Scotland, was founded in November 1997 with #2.5 million from the Merlin Fund. In addition it has received #2 million in grants from the development agencies Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Enterprise Glasgow.

PanTherix is focusing on the protein structure of soluble bacterial enzymes that are required for cellular metabolism, that produce components of essential molecules, or that produce metabolites essential for viability.

"We work only on protein structures where we can obtain pure protein, and get the exact crystallographic structure," Macdonald said. "We then screen for first-round hits and use that to define the type of molecule we are looking for.

"It's an iterative process - that's the difference between us and big pharma. They do a lot of high-throughput screening; we take a more intellectual approach. Big pharma tries a lot of keys to find one to fit the lock; we strip down the lock so we know what sort of key we need."

By focusing on these new targets the company said it will address the problem of bacterial resistance to drugs. Its targets are discrete and distinct from the mode of action of current antibiotics and consequently each target offers the prospect of a new class of antibiotic. The company has chosen targets that are conserved across a number of strains, hoping to produce broad-spectrum antibiotics.

Macdonald pointed out that development of antibiotics is faster than other drugs. "You can demonstrate proof of principle before clinical trials because you can show it works on bacteria, and then only a limited Phase I is required."

Do date, the company has completed the characterization of two targets and found some initial leads. The funding will last two years, in which time PanTherix will take this preclinical work to Phase II, when it intends to license out compounds.