Start-up company IntraBiotics Pharmaceuticals Inc. saidFriday that it closed on $4 million in private financing.

The company, incorporated last January, bases it productson natural antimicrobial substances it calls "intrabiotics,"which are produced as part of the internal host systems ofanimals and humans. The products are being developed totreat and prevent infectious diseases.

IntraBiotics, which now has four employees, is movingtoday into a 12,000-square-foot facility in Palo Alto,Calif. The company will expand to 20 employees inJanuary, Kenneth Kelley, the company's president andCEO, told BioWorld. Kelley formerly was a venturecapitalist with Institutional Venture Partners of MenloPark, Calif.

Kelley said he raised seed money from biotechnologyexecutives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Investors inthe private financing round were the Sprout Group, ofMenlo Park; Brinson Partners, of Chicago; and St. PaulVentures, of Bloomington, Minn.

The company's first product candidate, protegrin, wasisolated from pigs. IntraBiotics said it displayed equal orbetter efficacy to conventional antimicrobes in killingbacterial, fungal and parasitic pathogens, includingclinical isolates and drug resistant strains. Kelley said aninvestigational new drug application for protegrin isexpected to be filed in late 1995 or early 1996.

Kelley said his company has about six additional classesof intrabiotics.

"The simple notion of leveraging natural selection is apowerful one," he said. _ Jim Shrine

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