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Durham, N.C.-Based Biotech Uses Venture Capital Funds to Research Ailments

Posted on: Wednesday, 18 January 2006, 00:00 CST

By The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.

Jan. 18--Metabolon will use the $8 million raised in its second round of venture capital funding to continue research on ailments including Lou Gehrig's disease, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

The $8 million met the Durham company's expectations for the two-month fund-raising period, said CEO John Ryals. In its first round of venture capital funding, the company raised $9 million.

"We won't be hiring a lot of people," Ryals said. "This money is more for being able to self-invest in some opportunities that have come our way."

Among those are indicator tests for diseases and tests for drug effectiveness, Ryals said.

"We want to be able to diagnose a disease and be able to tell people when they should use certain therapies," he said. "It's essentially analyzing how a patient is relating to a disease or to a drug and providing that information back to their physicians."

With this latest round of funding, Metabolon is introducing a new investor, Harris & Harris Group of New York, which contributed $2.5 million of the $8 million total.

Harris is a publicly traded venture capital company that invested $16 million in companies last year. That included $1 million in February to Nextreme Thermal Solutions, a Research Triangle Park company developing devices to precisely control temperature.

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HHGP,

Source: The News & Observer

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