Technology investor Imperial Innovations has led a £.15 million funding round for one its portfolio businesses biotechnology company PolyTherics.
Beringea’s ProVen Health Venture Capital Trust (VCT) and The Capital Fund also backed the company, which is a provider to biopharmaceutical companies for the improvement of protein and peptide-based drugs.
Imperial has committed £1.2 million in the round. Joining as a new investor ProVen Health VCT committed £750,000, while existing investor, The Capital Fund, which is managed by YFM Equity Partners, provided £200,000.
After the round, Imperial will hold a 38.6 per cent stake in the company. The investment follows a £3 million financing in February 2010 and a £2.3 million financing in June 2007, both backed by Innovations, Longbow Capital and The Capital Fund.
Led by chief executive John Burt, PolyTherics has developed three technologies for attaching the polymer Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) to therapeutic peptides and proteins. The process, known as PEGylation, slows the elimination of drugs from the body, which improves their efficiency and allows them to be dosed less frequently.
The funds will be used to apply the technologies to more products.
Burt comments, ‘This successful fundraising will enable us to expand the application of our PEGylation technologies to novel biomolecules and to use our linker chemistry in new ways and we look forward to forging new collaborations to develop improved therapeutic molecules.’
