Stromedix CEO Michael Gilman appears to be making headway in his quest to round up an additional $15 million in venture funds for his virtual biotech. Quoting documents filed with the feds, Mass High Tech reports that the Cambridge, MA-based biotech has revealed that it has garnered the first $2 million of that round.
The drug developer has been working on STX-100, an antibody it licensed in from Biogen Idec, where Gilman had worked as EVP. It in-licensed another treatment from the University of California San Francisco last fall. There's no word on where the new money is coming from, but New Leaf Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Atlas Venture, Frazier Healthcare Ventures and Red Abbey Venture Partners have all contributed to the $29.4 million Stromedix raised in its first two rounds.
Gilman has been a gleeful advocate of the virtual business model for fledgling drug developers. In 2009, when the company had eight people on its staff, he told FierceBiotech: "It really helps to be in a place like Cambridge, which is thick with people who do this on a consulting basis. We have a consulting CFO who works with a dozen biotech companies in the area. In general, this is a lot easier to pull off here than in, say, St. Louis."
- here's the report from Mass High Tech