StrataGent Life Sciences, Inc. Closes $16 Million Series B Financing
SAN JOSE, May 10 /PRNewswire/ -- StrataGent Life Sciences, Inc., a privately held specialty drug therapy company located in San Jose, California, today announced that it closed a $16 million Series B round of financing led by Essex Woodlands Health Ventures. Quantum Technology Partners, the Series A investor, and Aphelion Capital, also participated in this round. StrataGent received the first tranche of investment in the amount of $6.65 million, with the balance deliverable next year based on certain milestones being achieved by the company.
"We are excited to welcome Essex Woodlands to our team," said co-founder Ruben Rathnasingham. "Having such an experienced investment group fund our next development stage reinforces our confidence in the potential for our microjet technology."
"StrataGent has created an impressive technology with a strong intellectual property position," commented Ron Eastman of Essex Woodlands. "Its ability to deliver a pipeline of commercially attractive molecules, both large and small, provides significant opportunities for the company. With the ability to deliver off-the-shelf formulations, we expect StrataGent can move rapidly to capture these opportunities."
StrataGent's patent pending microjet system was recently featured in research published in the March 13, 2007 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Co-founder Ravi Srinivasan commented, "Now we are well positioned to rapidly leverage our development successes such as those reported in the recent PNAS publication, which highlights our technology and describes the tremendous potential for microjet delivery of a broad array of drugs that will ultimately provide significant patient benefit."
About StrataGent Life Sciences, Inc.
StrataGent Life Sciences, Inc. is a specialty drug therapy company developing painless, non-invasive versions of therapies that would otherwise be injected. Its products are based on its proprietary microjet technology, which delivers large and small therapeutic molecules without a device penetrating into or through the skin. In May of 2004, StrataGent received a $2 million award from the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology to support the development of the StrataGent microjet technology.
About Essex Woodlands Health Ventures
Essex Woodlands Health Ventures (with roughly $1.6 billion under management) is one of the world's premier venture capital firms focused exclusively on the healthcare industry. Essex Woodlands recently raised their seventh fund of $600 million. The firm has offices in California, Texas, New York and London. The Essex Woodlands team has been involved in the founding, investing, and/or management of over 100 healthcare companies ranging across all sectors, stages and geography. For more information, visit www.ewhv.com.
About Quantum Technology Partners
Quantum Technology Partners, located in Silicon Valley, invests in early stage Information Technology and Life Sciences companies in the U.S. and Europe. Quantum was founded in 2000 and co-invests with leading venture capital firms. For more information about Quantum, go to www.quantumtp.com.
About Aphelion Capital
Aphelion Capital(R), LLC makes public and private investments in the Life Sciences Industry. Aphelion's managers have extensive experience investing across both the public and private equity markets. Aphelion invests in companies across all stages and therapeutic areas, with a focus on companies with low capital requirements and short time lines to market. The Fund is generally a long term investor in companies that we believe have superior products and strong management teams. For more information, visit www.aphelioncapital.net
San Jose BioCenter; StrataGent Life Sciences, Inc.
CONTACT: Ravi Srinivasan, Director of Technology at StrataGent LifeSciences, Inc., +1-408-960-2903
Web site: http://www.sjbiocenter.com//