Synthecell Corp. said Thursday that it has received $1 millionfrom Elliott Associates L.P. of New York in the first closing ofa fund-raising round the company hopes will total $5 million.Elliott is the lead investor in the round and will be representedon Synthecell's board by Charles K. MacDonald.

Rockville, Md.-based Synthecell is developing antisensetechnology, and manufactures custom synthetic DNA andpeptides.

"Our strategy is disease-targeted rather than getting behind aparticular technology," said James Hawkins, president andchief executive officer. The approach is more like that of atraditional pharmaceutical company than a biotech company, hesaid.

Hawkins told BioWorld that Synthecell is focusing its in-housedevelopment on one disease and will announce collaborationswithin a few weeks for two or three other diseases.

One criterion for choosing target diseases is the existence of aknown drug that works on a protein. Given that starting point,"you can develop an antisense compound to the messenger RNAthat regulates that protein," said Hawkins. "That reduces therisk and time in drug development."

A second criterion is that diseases are surface-accessible,which refers to diseases of the skin, eyes, ears, nose or mouth,where there is direct access to the disease site. This bothlimits the amount of drug needed, Hawkins said, and reducesregulatory issues compared with drugs that must beadministered through the bloodstream.

This is Synthecell's first round of funding since it raised $1million from private individuals at its inception in 1987. Thecompany already has one profitable product, synthetic DNA, andis also selling peptides. Synthecell projects 1991 revenuesfrom both at $1.8 million.

Hawkins said the second closing should come with four to sixweeks. -- Karen Bernstein

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