LONDON ¿ Cyclacel Ltd., of Dundee, Scotland, which is focused on cancer therapeutics, has completed its second private financing round, raising #5.3 million (US$8.5 million).

The money came from a combination of new institutional and venture capital investors and existing shareholders. New investors included Dresdner Kleinwort Benson Ltd., The Equitable Life Assurance Society, Merifin Capital NV, Northern Venture Managers and Scottish Equity Partnership. Existing shareholders taking part included the Merlin Fund and Cancer Research Campaign Technology Ltd.

The University of Dundee and the University of Glasgow were granted 30-day options to increase their respective share holdings. If these options are exercised, the amount raised will increase to #5.5 million. Spiro Rombotis, CEO, said the company is ¿pleased to have completed this financing during what continues to be a difficult investment climate for the biotech community. This investment endorses the strength of Cyclacel¿s science base.¿

Cyclacel raised #2.5 million in its first round in mid-1997 from the Merlin Fund, the dedicated bioscience fund. The company is now valued at #13 million. Cyclacel was founded by David Lane, discoverer of the anticancer gene p53 and one of the founders of the field of cell cycle research. He is professor of molecular oncology at the University of Dundee and director of the Cancer Research Campaign¿s cell transformation research group.

Cyclacel aims to build on its expertise in cell cycle control to develop new treatments for common cancers. Its most advanced project is the CYC200 series of small molecule cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) drugs that inhibit aspects of the cell cycle. The lead compound CYC202 exhibits a strong apoptotic effect in in vivo xenograft tumors in mice. According to Rombotis, the CYC200 program will soon be ready for partnering.

The company is not working directly on p53, but its second program, CYC100, is focused on the design of synthetic peptides, or Pimetics, to mimic the effect of the tumor suppressor protein p21, induced by p53; and p16, which operates along a parallel pathway to p53. The p16 mimetic has been minimized to 6 amino acids, and has been shown to arrest the cell cycle in animal models.

In addition, the company is developing a drug delivery platform around Penetratin, a proprietary peptide derived from the DNA of Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) DNA, which has the ability to deliver peptides and/or vectors to the cell nucleus. Cyclacel is developing it for delivery of its own cancer therapeutics and for licensing. Rombotis said Penetratin has been tested with four drugs and negotiations are ongoing with several U.S. companies to use it to deliver their compounds.