PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals, a Morrisville company that is working on products designed to extend the half-life of drugs in the body, announced Thursday that it has raised $25 million in venture capital funding.
The funding comes as new venture capital to area companies has slowed to a trickle, with just $27.7 million raised by all Triangle companies in the third quarter of 2009.
Thomas Laundon, PhaseBio's chief financial officer, said the company will use the money to expand its line of potential products and move some existing products to the clinical trial.
"We'll be both expanding the pipeline of product candidates we're working on, and this will also allow us to push these product candidates into the clinic," he said.
Laundon said the company, which has a dozen employees, will add some workers but is unlikely to ramp up its staff significantly. The company leases 6,000 square feet of space.
PhaseBio's proprietary biotechnology attaches to biological molecules and allows those molecules to survive longer in the body. The technology has the potential to be applied to a wide range of human diseases, including cancer, obesity and diabetes.
The lead investors in the $25 million round were New Enterprise Associates and OSI Investment Management, a subsidiary of publicly traded OSI Pharmaceuticals. Also contributing money were Hatteras Venture Partners, Johnson & Johnson Development Corp. and Fletcher Spaght Ventures.
PhaseBio announced Thursday that it was adding three people to its board of directors, including Robert Ingram, vice chairman of GlaxoSmithKline and a current partner at RTP-based Hatteras Venture Partners.
PhaseBio's CEO, Dr. Christopher Prior, previously founded BioRexis Pharmaceuticals, a firm acquired by Pfizer in 2007.
Laundon said PhaseBio had been working on raising a second round of venture funding for the past 12 months.
