WellGen completes $3M financing

Amphion Innovations, the developer of technology and life sciences businesses, says that one of its portfolio companies, WellGen, a biotechnology firm using nutrigenomics to discover and develop plant-based wellness products, has completed its Series B financing totaling $3.0 million.

The capital raised from this latest round of financing will provide additional resources for WellGen to begin clinical studies in humans under its obesity and inflammation programs, aimed at developing and bringing to market a variety of new and promising nutritional products on which the company is working. Investors in this round of financing include both new and existing WellGen shareholders. Amphion's $1.0 million investment, previously announced in August 2005, brings its ownership stake in the firm to 19%.

WellGen's obesity program is based upon the study of a proprietary gene panel comprised of carefully selected genes that are known to be associated with obesity. Functional food ingredients coming out of this research are anticipated to control weight via a gene-controlling mechanism of action that is different from those of other products on the market. Encouraged by animal studies that were completed in late 2005, WellGen says it anticipates beginning human clinical studies during 2006.