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Cleveland Biolabs opens new venture

Monday, April 26, 2010

Business First of Buffalo - by Tracey Drury

Nearly a year after forming a joint venture with a Russian-based venture capital fund, Cleveland BioLabs Inc. has announced the launch of an entity to develop anticancer therapies.

The Buffalo drug development firm (NASDAQ: CBLI) opened the U.S. office of Incuron LLC, a joint venture between CBLI and Bioprocess Capital Ventures LLC, the Russian firm. The launch triggers the first $5.7 million investment into Incuron.

The deal, first announced last year, calls for a $18 million investment over three years to develop anticancer therapies based on CBLI’s Curaxin drug family, which have been transferred to Incuron. The deal also enables the start of human trials on the compound.
In a prepared release, CBLI executives say the company will simultaneously target several molecular pathways, a unique property of Curaxin drug candidates.

“This attribute makes them very promising drug candidates that may be effective against a wide spectrum of human malignancies and reduces the risk of development of tumor resistance to this class of compounds,” said Andrei Gudkov, chief scientific officer and principal author of the research discoveries.

Askar Kuchumov has been named CEO at Incuron. He was an investment manager at Bioprocess Capital Ventures who previously held leadership roles at BD Diagnostics, a New Jersey medical technology firm, and other life science companies.

The initial development strategy for the company will include completing formal pre-clinical studies, followed by submission of investigational new drug application to the Food & Drug Administration and clinical trials. The joint venture will also pursue follow up trials in Russia.

CBLI will serve as a subcontractor to Incuron, supporting studies and overseeing clinical and preclinical development.

Founded in 2003, Cleveland Biolabs moved to Buffalo in 2007. The company, which develops treatments for cancer and acute radiation syndrome, has strategic partnerships with the Cleveland Clinic, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, ChemBridge Corp. and the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute.

Bioprocess Capital Ventures is a $100 million Russian VC fund managed by the limited liability company Bioprocess Capital Partners. The fund focuses its investments in innovative technologies in the life sciences/biotechnology and fine chemistry sectors.