Immune Control taken over by Baltimore firm in $15M deal
Immune Control becomes part of Baltimore-based Corridor Pharmaceuticals, with $15M in new money from Quaker BioVentures and other investors
Arginetix Inc., Baltimore, has combined with Immune Control Inc, West Conshohocken, to form a new firm, Baltimore-based Corridor Pharmaceuticals, Inc., to work on lung diseases, starting with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), investor Quaker BioVentures said in a statement this morning. An office will remain in West Conshohocken.
As part of the deal, Corridor Pharmaceuticals has raised $15 million for drug development from former backers of both firms: Domain Associates; Quaker BioVentures; MedImmune Ventures; NewSpring Capital of Radnor; Maryland Health Care Product Development Corporation; taxpayer-backed Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern PA; Acidophil LLC; and Red Abbey Venture Partners.
"Corridor will develop treatments based on the first-in-class arginase inhibition platform developed by Arginetix, and Immune Control's serotonin antagonist technology. Gary Lessing, formerly the CEO of Arginetix, will serve as CEO of Corridor, and Stephen Roth, Ph.D., formerly CEO of Immune Control, will serve as executive vice chairman of the board of directors," according to the statement.
Lessing, a former Alex. Brown investment banker and Avalon Pharmaceuticals chief financial officer, licensed technologies from the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins for Arginetix. The combined firms are developing therapies based on "L-arginine, the major substrate involved in the formation of nitric oxide, and serotonin, a key regulator of vascular tone and pulmonary vascular remodeling."