IonGate Completes Third Funding Round and Expands Its Business to the USA
FRANKFURT/MAIN, Germany, January 16, 2008- IonGate Biosciences GmbH announces the closing of the third funding round. The capital contribution of the investors Heidelberg Innovation and KfW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau) therewith amounts to €4.6 million in 2007. IonGate will use the increase in capital to expand
its international business activities, for the worldwide commercialization of the SURFE2R Technology (SURFace Electrogenic Event Reader) and for the further development of the SURFE2R Workstation.
In December 2007 IonGate achieved a decisive step towards internationalization with the formation of IonGate Biosciences Incorporated in New York, USA. The wholly owned affiliate is the first foreign subsidiary of the Germany-based company. IonGate Biosciences Inc. will actively assist the international marketing of the SURFE2R Technology, particularly in the North American area. The raised funds will be partly used to establish the required distribution channels within the USA. The formation of the American subsidiary supports IonGate to meet the increasing demand for sophisticated techniques to automatically analyze electrogenic membrane proteins with its SURFE2R Technology.
Furthermore, the invested capital will fuel the continuous development of the SURFE2R Workstation, utilized for a direct functional characterization of transport proteins. This technology platform, which is especially designed for pharmaceutical drug screening, is the only available system so far to automatically screen for lead structures in a fast and cost-efficient fashion with high throughput. The SURFE2R Workstation 8 will boost these processes once more and enable parallel measurements. Thus, IonGate provides the pharmaceutical industry with a proprietary technology for a highly efficient development of new agents.
About IonGate Biosciences GmbH
IonGate Biosciences GmbH develops, produces and markets innovative screening technologies to investigate transporters and is the worldwide leading company in this area.
Transporters are essential for the metabolic functions of the cell, information processing in the entire organism and play a fundamental role to the health of humans. Due to their difficult experimental accessibility transporters are underrepresented in current drug screening processes so far. For the first time IonGate provides with SURFE2R One and SURFE2R Workstation a highly precise functional screening of transporters in higher throughput and thereby positions itself as a strong partner for the pharmaceutical industry. With its SURFE2R Workstation IonGate has created a technological basis for an automated and robust analytical technique. The company supplies complete solutions, besides disposables and reagents, this mainly comprises individual consulting services comprising the design of customized applications.
IonGate Biosciences GmbH is a venture capital financed biotechnology company located in Frankfurt/Main in Germany. In addition to the main financier and leading partner Heidelberg Innovation the KfW holds a stake in IonGate. The company was established in 2000 and currently employs more than 30 staff members.