CAMBRIDGE, U.K., Sept. 10, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Xention Discovery Ltd. announced today the closing of a 4 million Pounds ($6.5 million) private equity financing. New investors in the Company include BTG International Ltd. of London; Quester of London; Albany Ventures of Edinburgh and Enterprise Venture Capital Trust plc -- advised by Noble Fund Managers Ltd. -- also of Edinburgh, who join existing investors MVM Ltd and Isis Equity Partners plc. The financing was co-led by BTG and Quester.
"We are delighted to have the support of such a broad investor group in what has undoubtedly been a very difficult financing environment," commented Tim Brears, Xention's Chief Executive. "We look forward to working closely with our new investors and to making full use of their experience and expertise. This brings to more than 8 million Pounds the funds we have raised to date." Iain Wilcock of Quester will join Xention's Board of Directors.
"Our unique technology is allowing us to discover and develop drug candidates which act on ion channels, an important yet under-exploited class of targets. Our approach is based on collecting the functional electrophysiological data recognised as being essential for the exploitation of this important class of drug targets," continued Tim Brears, "these funds will allow us to further develop and advance our drug screening programs in the cardiovascular and neurology areas."
About Xention: Xention Discovery Ltd. is a drug discovery company using proprietary technologies to accelerate the discovery of novel and selective ion channel drugs. Xention's AutoPatch(R) system allows the Company to screen important ion channel targets against its proprietary compound libraries and rapidly progress the development of hits and leads based on genuine electrophysiological data. Thus, the Company is able to use relevant functional data to accelerate the development of more potent and selective drug candidates, overcoming existing limitations in ion channel drug discovery.
Please click on the link provided to view the full press release: http://reports.huginonline.com/916919/122927.pdf