Microbia Raises $75M To Advance IBS Drug Candidate Through Clinical Trials

Filed in archive Corporate and Industrial News , Drugs, Vaccines and Therapeutics on February 28, 2006

Microbia, Inc is an MIT spin-off biotech company originally working on yeast technology. Of late, however, Microbia has been venturing into drug development, particularly in finding treatment for the potential 10 million Irritable bowel Syndrome patients in the US (see photo from Microbia, left). And investors are expressing their confidence in Microbia's pipeline, as Microbia announce receiving $75 million in new venture capital financing (pdf file).

"This significant infusion of equity capital will be utilized to advance our proprietary pipeline of novel therapeutics through clinical trials, including both MD-1100 and our Phase 1 cholesterol absorption inhibitor MD-0727, " said Peter Hecht, CEO of Microbia. "Both of these innovative oral drug candidates - which target the needs of millions of patients - have shown early potential in human studies, and we are committed to their aggressive, comprehensive development."

MD-1100 is a drug dandidate for chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) and an ongoing Phase 2 trial is being conducted in patients with constipation-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-C).

Read more about Microbia and the venture funding from the Boston Globe.