Washington Editor

ActivBiotics Inc. announced an initial closing of a $26.4 million Series B round of financing, bringing the total capital raised by the company to $48.4 million.

Located in Lexington, Mass., ActivBiotics is focused on improving acute infections and chronic diseases caused or exacerbated by microbial pathogens.

While company officials could not be reached for comment, Chalom Sayada, CEO, said in a prepared statement, "To be able to raise a substantial amount of capital in the current financial climate is a clear endorsement of our technology and management team. The proceeds of this round will be used to advance current programs in infectious diseases through the completion of Phase II clinical development and initiation of Phase III trials in 2004, and to accelerate our discovery and preclinical programs aimed at blockbuster indications."

Rifalazil, the company's lead compound, is the subject of a Phase II trial in sexually transmitted diseases and is likely to enter Phase III trials in other indications. Rifalazil is an antibiotic that targets and inhibits the transcriptional machinery of bacteria, the company said.

MDS Capital Corp., of Cambridge, Mass., led the Series B round that included BioVentures Investors, also of Cambridge; F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., of Basel, Switzerland; China Development Industrial Bank, of Taiwan; New England Partners, of Boston; HealthCare Ventures LLC, also of Cambridge; and Delphi Ventures LP, of Menlo Park, Calif.

Gerry Brunk, venture partner at MDS Capital, and Paul Auerbach, general partner at Delphi Ventures, will join the ActivBiotics board.

Others board members include chairman Raymond Baddour, a co-founder of Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based Amgen and former chair of the chemical engineering department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge; John Littlechild, general partner at HealthCare Ventures; and Walter Gilbert, partner at BioVentures Investors, co-founder of Cambridge-based Biogen Inc. and winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Privately held ActivBiotics employs 18 people.