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Advancell secures funding of 11 million euro to boost its projects

By 3 de December de 2007No Comments
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 03.12.2007

Advancell secures funding of 11 million euro to boost its projects

The biotechnology company , based in the Barcelona Science Park, has announced that it has secured funding of 11 million euro to boost the majority of its most immediate projects. The deal is based on a capital increase of 7.5 million euro from private sources and the award of 3.5 million euro in loans from public or semi-public bodies, including the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) and the Ministry of Education and Science. The 7.5 million euro corresponding to increased capital has mostly come from Advancell shareholders.

The company has also announced that its Management Board now has a new member, José María Abril, a representative of the company Talde Gestión, S.G.E.C.R., which holds 12.37% of Advancell shares. Abril has recently been made a board member of the Spanish telecommunications company Telefònica, and has many years of experience in the financial and business sectors. Indeed, he has held several high-level posts with companies such as Banesto, BBVA, Repsol, Iberia and Corporació IBV.

One of Advancell’s most advanced current projects involves a joint venture with the British pharmaceutical firm Protherics that is aimed at developing Acadra™ (acadesine), a potentially safe and effective orphan drug for the treatment of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. Investment in this work could exceed 50 million euro and is aimed at a potential market of around 250 million euro per year. Another project already underway and which will benefit from this new injection of funding involves the clinical development of a molecule, cyclosporin, which Advancell is investigating in order to develop, in collaboration with the pharmaceutical company ISDIN, a topical treatment for psoriasis.

Securing this new capital will also enable the company to move ahead relatively quickly (within three years) to the clinical phase in six nanomedicine projects. The funding will also serve to consolidate its range of services and reagents, which is being brought into line with the recently approved framework established by the REACH directive (a new European regulation on the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemical products).

The company has two divisions: Farma, which is geared toward the development of innovative drugs by means of research into new applications of known molecules; and Services and Reagents, which uses cell-based in vitro methods to predict the efficacy, safety and mechanism of action of molecules under development. Its business model is based on a methodology that enables considerable reductions to be made in terms of costs, risks and drug development times.