Press Releases
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - October 28, 2004 - Catalyst Biosciences, Inc., a protein therapeutics company, today announced that it has closed a Series A round of funding at $10.3 million. Sofinnova Ventures led the financing, which also included Burrill and Company, RCT Bioventures and Novartis Venture Fund.
Catalyst will use the financing to move its research and development programs through pre-clinical animal models toward clinical development, to expand its technology and infrastructure platform, and to add key personnel and laboratory space.
"We are very pleased that our investors both accelerated and increased the size of our Series A funding round in response to our early achievement of 2004 milestones. We will use this funding to expand and accelerate our internal drug discovery efforts," said Edwin L. Madison, Vice President of Research for Catalyst.
"This capital will allow us to build our infrastructure and human resources and to continue to set and achieve aggressive milestones and timelines," said UCSF Professor and Catalyst Founder Charles Craik, Ph.D.
The company develops both naturally-occurring and engineered human proteases for a wide spectrum of therapeutic indications, including cancer, inflammation, and cardiovascular diseases. Proteases are naturally-occurring protein-degrading enzymes that have been used against their natural targets as approved therapeutics. Currently, there are six such proteases on the market.
"Catalyst has assembled a world class team of founders, management, and scientific and clinical advisors,' commented Sofinnova Venture Partner Barry Selick, PhD. "They have leveraged their extensive expertise to engineer proteases that will represent a new modality in protein therapeutics that is expected to create new, and expand existing, markets accessible to protease drugs."
About Catalyst Biosciences
Catalyst is a protein therapeutics company harnessing the catalytic power of proteases to create novel therapeutic agents. Catalyst's technology includes methods to rapidly create and characterize tailor-made proteases applicable to a broad spectrum of clinical categories. By engineering proteases to inactivate specific proteins that promote disease progression in areas such as cancer and inflammation, Catalyst is developing a new modality in biopharmaceuticals. For more information, visit www.catbio.com.
Contact: For Catalyst: Karen Roberson, 415.228.3395, karen@sofinnova.co
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CATALYST BIOSCIENCES RAISES $10 MILLION IN SERIES A FINANCINGSOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - October 28, 2004 - Catalyst Biosciences, Inc., a protein therapeutics company, today announced that it has closed a Series A round of funding at $10.3 million. Sofinnova Ventures led the financing, which also included Burrill and Company, RCT Bioventures and Novartis Venture Fund.
Catalyst will use the financing to move its research and development programs through pre-clinical animal models toward clinical development, to expand its technology and infrastructure platform, and to add key personnel and laboratory space.
"We are very pleased that our investors both accelerated and increased the size of our Series A funding round in response to our early achievement of 2004 milestones. We will use this funding to expand and accelerate our internal drug discovery efforts," said Edwin L. Madison, Vice President of Research for Catalyst.
"This capital will allow us to build our infrastructure and human resources and to continue to set and achieve aggressive milestones and timelines," said UCSF Professor and Catalyst Founder Charles Craik, Ph.D.
The company develops both naturally-occurring and engineered human proteases for a wide spectrum of therapeutic indications, including cancer, inflammation, and cardiovascular diseases. Proteases are naturally-occurring protein-degrading enzymes that have been used against their natural targets as approved therapeutics. Currently, there are six such proteases on the market.
"Catalyst has assembled a world class team of founders, management, and scientific and clinical advisors,' commented Sofinnova Venture Partner Barry Selick, PhD. "They have leveraged their extensive expertise to engineer proteases that will represent a new modality in protein therapeutics that is expected to create new, and expand existing, markets accessible to protease drugs."
About Catalyst Biosciences
Catalyst is a protein therapeutics company harnessing the catalytic power of proteases to create novel therapeutic agents. Catalyst's technology includes methods to rapidly create and characterize tailor-made proteases applicable to a broad spectrum of clinical categories. By engineering proteases to inactivate specific proteins that promote disease progression in areas such as cancer and inflammation, Catalyst is developing a new modality in biopharmaceuticals. For more information, visit www.catbio.com.
Contact: For Catalyst: Karen Roberson, 415.228.3395, karen@sofinnova.co
