MEMORY PHARMACEUTICALS COMPLETES $40 MILLION PRIVATE FINANCING TO ACCELERATE NEUROLOGICAL DRUG DISCOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT
- Michael Meyers, M.P.H. to join Company's Board of Directors -
Montvale, NJ, March 25, 2002 - Memory Pharmaceuticals Corp., a privately held company developing drugs for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric diseases, announced today that it has raised approximately $40 million in a private financing to advance the Company's research and product development efforts. Biomedicine L.P., an affiliate of International BM Biomedicine Holdings (IBMH) served as the lead investor. Global Biomedical Partners, as the exclusive investment advisor to IBMH, represented Biomedicine L.P. in this transaction. New investors participating in this round include Yamanouchi Venture Capital, Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsubishi International Corporation, SG Cowen Ventures, Bioveda Capital, and Yasuda Enterprise Development Company. Previous investors participating include Oxford Bioscience Partners, Venrock Associates, Orbimed Advisors, Alta Partners, S.R. One Limited, HealthCare Ventures, GIMV, Medica Venture Partners, The Invus Group, Global Life Science Limited Partnership, and Rho Ventures. Bear, Stearns & Co. served as placement agent for this transaction.
"This financing is one of the largest this year for a private life sciences company, and represents a solid and broad endorsement by our previous and new investors of the progress that our Company has made in both building a diversified pipeline and strengthening our management team," said Tony Scullion, Chief Executive Officer of Memory Pharmaceuticals. "The proceeds will enable us to continue to enhance the productivity of our discovery engine and achieve our development targets. A key development will be the initiation of clinical trials later this year for MEM 1003 for Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Vascular Dementia (VaD)," added Mr. Scullion.
The Company entered into a license agreement with Bayer AG in 2001 for the rights to commercialize and market MEM 1003, a new-generation drug candidate to treat central nervous system (CNS) disorders. Prior to licensing, the Company tested MEM 1003 in its fully integrated drug discovery and development COGNOSTICST platform to determine its viability as a development candidate.
"We exercised our option to license MEM 1003 based on promising results within our COGNOSTICST technology platform. We continue to employ this powerful COGNOSTICST technology to identify other potential in-licensing drug candidates," said Axel Unterbeck, Ph.D., President and Chief Scientific Officer of Memory Pharmaceuticals. "Our prime focus is to apply this platform for the evaluation of the efficacy and safety of in-house developed compounds for lead identification and optimization."
This drug discovery and development engine yielded within one year of lead optimization the Company's first development drug derived from its proprietary PDE-4 inhibitor program for MCI, Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and Major Depression.
Memory Pharmaceuticals has developed a fully integrated drug discovery and development process that combines target selection, focused library synthesis, high throughput screening, in vitro and in vivo efficacy screening, ADME, PK, Tox and safety profiling. The platform consists of multiple assays that provide the biochemical, neurophysiological, and behavioral basis of understanding how memory-enhancing drugs work for different disease indications. By identifying drug candidates with the precise ability to target these pathways, the Company can validate the mechanism of action prior to initiating lengthy and costly animal studies. Together, these assessments enable the rapid evaluation of drug candidates in cells and tissues to determine the physiological function, improving the odds of success for clinical development.
New Board of Directors Appointment
In connection with the financing, the Company named Michael E. Meyers, M.P.H., Managing Director and Partner of Global Biomedical Partners, to the Board of Directors of Memory Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Meyers has significant experience with a range of financing and strategic products for life science companies, such as private and public equity, equity-linked and debt securities, tracking stocks, recapitalizations, tenders and mergers and acquisitions. Prior to joining Global Biomedical Partners, Mr. Meyers was Director, Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Investment Banking at Merrill Lynch & Co., and formerly was Vice President, Health Care Investment Banking and Head of the Pharmaceutical & Drug Delivery Focus Group at Cowen & Company in New York.
"We are extremely pleased to have led the Memory Pharmaceuticals Series D financing with such an esteemed syndicate of U.S., European and Asian investors," said Michael Meyers. "The Company has a deep pipeline of product candidates and research programs that target different mechanisms of action in order to address disorders of the central nervous system such as Mild Cognitive Impairment, Alzheimer's Disease, Major Depression and Schizophrenia, among others. Memory Pharmaceuticals takes an integrated approach to drug discovery and development that utilizes several different cognitive assays, electrophysiology, behavioral models and other techniques. The Company has recruited top-tier researchers within the disciplines of chemistry, biology, informatics and behavioral modeling in order to optimize its product candidates vis-à-vis drug development," added Michael Meyers.
About Memory Pharmaceuticals:
Memory Pharmaceuticals is a neuropharmaceutical company developing drugs for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric diseases. Based on intellectual property developed by Nobel Laureate, Eric Kandel, M.D., the company's proprietary COGNOSTICST technology platform consists of an array of state-of-the-art bioassays that evaluate the cellular, physiological and behavioral aspects of drug effects within relevant memory pathways. Memory Pharmaceuticals applies its COGNOSTICST technology to target validation, chemical hit and lead identification, lead optimization and nomination of clinical development candidates. Memory Pharmaceuticals has developed a diverse pipeline of drug discovery programs at various stages of research and development, based on in-house discovery efforts and in-licensing of promising drugs.