Sterix raises L8 million in financing

Sterix, a UK biopharmaceutical firm that specializes in discoveringnovel steroid derivatives and small-molecule drugs to modulate steroid metabolism, has raised L8 million ($11.3 million) in a private financing, backed by four venture capitalists and led by Avlar Bioventures.

The company said that the proceeds will be used to expand existing R&D programs and to take Sterix' second product, Oncomate, a steroid suphatase inhibitor, into trials for the treatment of breast cancer. The firm's lead project, Oestramate, has just completed Phase I studies and is the first synthetic hepatic-sparing estrogen derivative to enter the clinic. Sterix added that the latter is licensed to "a leading European pharmaceutical company," but did not say which one.