ProtAffin completes second closing of series A financing

Graz, Austria-based ProtAffin Biotechnologie AG has completed a second closing of its series A financing. The Entrepreneurs Fund BV invested 1.3 million euros ($1.9 million) in the second closing, in addition to the 2.6 million euros first closing in May 2007 from Aescap Venture Management BV and Z-Cube Srl. This brings the total funds raised in the series A financing to 4.0 million euros.

The company will use the funds to progress its lead product PA401 through preclinical development and to further validate and broaden its CellJammer discovery technology. While heparin is a glycan-based product successfully used in preventing coagulation for over 40 years, the therapeutic potential of targeting protein-glycan interactions in inflammation and cancer has so far been under-exploited, noted ProtAffin, which is using its CellJammer technology to develop biological products which have an anti-inflammatory activity by binding to heparin-like glycans driving inflammation.

The company's lead product, PA401, has been derived from interleukin-8, and has shown potent efficacy in a number of in vivo models of inflammatory diseases. ProtAffin plans to develop PA401 for ischemia/reperfusion injury in the setting of kidney transplantation.