Scriptgen Pharmaceuticals Inc. raised $6.6 million in a second-roundfinancing, bringing to $13 million the Medford, Mass., company hasraised since its founding in 1993.Scriptgen is using its high-throughput screening technology todevelop small molecule drugs that regulate gene expression at thetranscription and post-transcription stages. Its initial focus is onantimicrobial and antiviral indications.Advent International, of Boston, led the second financing round.Existing investors also participating include the CW Group, of NewYork; Atlas Venture, of Boston; Accel Partners, of San Francisco;New Enterprise Associates, of Baltimore; and Venrock Associates, ofNew York.The company's lead discoveries, in the antimicrobial area, come fromits ATLAS (Any Target Ligand Affinity Screen) technology. It takesa large library of compounds and reduces it to a small ligand libraryof compounds that will bind to a given protein."Over the past year we've reduced it all to practice," ThomasBologna, Scriptgen's president and CEO, told BioWorld on Friday."We've already applied it to one particular target [in sickle cellanemia]. We did all the screening and got some hit compounds thatwe're looking at in secondary assays."Bologna said the company, over the past year, has put itsmanagement team in place, built a library of compounds and set upbacterial and fungal assays. "Now we're starting to talk about thistechnology with potential corporate partners."The idea," he said, "is to do a new class of antibiotics andantifungals. They would kill the bacteria by inhibiting transcription.We're going to disrupt the process at the transcription stage, and notallow the disease-causing proteins to be made."Bologna said the ATLAS technology also is applicable to areasoutside of its antimicrobial focus.He said it would be useful to access protein targets that have anuncharacterized function, uncharacterized biochemistry and nomechanism-based biochemical assay. "You can apply this technologyfirst," he said, "to create an enriched target-specific ligand library."Then you can use that to do the more cumbersome low-throughputassays."The antiviral program is at an earlier stage than the antimicrobial.Discovery there is based on the SCAN (Screen for Compounds withAffinity for Nucleic Acid) technology, which is the nucleic-acidversion of ATLAS. Hepatitis B and hepatitis C are two targets in thatprogram.Bologna said the financing should last Scriptgen about 18 months.The company has 27 employees, he said. n

-- Jim Shrine

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