Phoenix Biotech raises $3.6M, despite credit crunch

During a time of tight credit, record-breaking stock market plunges and shell-shocked investors, USA-based anti-cancer drug development firm Phoenix Biotechnology has just completed a private placement in which the company raised $3.6 million from individual investors.

The company has an anticancer agent based on a patented extract from the oleander plant. The drug is in a Food and Drug Administration Phase I clinical trial at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

58 individual angel investors, including 10 physicians, over the past month and a half bought into San Antonio-based Phoenix at $8 per share, with an average investment of $62,000. "It is encouraging to see the confidence that these investors have placed in Phoenix Biotechnology during a period of discomforting market turmoil and tightening credit," said Lou Kost , co-founder and executive vice president of Phoenix.