X-Biotix Therapeutics, Inc. Secures $7 million in Series A Financing

 X-Biotix Therapeutics, Inc. (X-Biotix), a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of novel small molecule antibiotic scaffolds targeting multi-drug-resistant (MDR) Gram-negative pathogens, announced that the company has secured $7 million in a Series A financing from a group of private investors. Proceeds of the financing will enable X-Biotix to advance its pipeline of novel antibiotic candidates targeting a wide range of biological targets in essential pathways of Gram-negative bacterial cells. The company also announced the addition of key individuals, including the appointment of Stephen T. Isaacs, and Christopher Ray to the Board of Directors, as well as Dominic Ryan, Ph.D. to the position of Chief Scientific Officer.

"I am very excited about securing the funding to support our novel antibiotic discovery and development efforts and am delighted to welcome an esteemed group of colleagues, including Mr. Isaacs and Mr. Ray to the board of directors and Dr. Ryan to our senior management team," said Ramani Varanasi, President & CEO of X-Biotix Therapeutics. "This Series A funding, coupled with Steve and Christopher’s collective leadership and experience in financing, building, and growing, early-stage organizations will be invaluable as we advance our pipeline and build leadership in the infectious disease area. In addition, Dominic’s broad experience and expertise in drug development, including in the antibiotics field, will be a tremendous addition to our internal research efforts and to our mission of addressing the growing threat of multi-drug resistant bacteria. I look forward to him taking an active role in the execution of our research strategy."

X-Biotix was recently launched out of X-Chem, a privately held biotechnology company focused on applying its unique DNA encoding technology (DEXTM) platform to the generation of novel small molecule therapeutics, and through a collaboration with senior investigators in the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School, and a technology license from Harvard University, is leveraging X-Chem’s unique platform to discover and develop novel chemical scaffolds with activity against a wide range of biological targets in essential pathways of Gram-negative bacterial cells, and which are also predicted to defeat known antibiotic resistance mechanisms.

Mr. Isaacs, who joins as Chairman of the Board of Directors, has more than 40 years of corporate leadership and scientific management experience within the biopharmaceutical sector, and currently serves as the Chairman, President & CEO of Aduro Biotech, Inc. He was previously President and Chief Executive Officer of Cerus Corporation, HRI Associates and HRI Research, and has been widely recognized in the industry as an innovator and leader, who has been able to forge deep ties between biotech and academia with the goal of discovering breakthrough technologies to make an impact on global health.

"I am pleased to be joining the X-Biotix Board of Directors as its Chairman at a time when the company has secured financing to advance its research efforts in this area of critical unmet need," said Mr. Isaacs. "The X-Biotix team, including its founders, is undertaking a unique strategy for the discovery of novel antibiotic scaffolds and I look forward to supporting Ramani and the management team as X-Biotix advances its discovery pipeline."

Mr. Ray, who joins as a Director on the Board of Directors, has over 20 years of experience in private equity and working closely with many start-ups and growth companies, including in the roles of investor, advisor, and Board member. Mr. Ray currently is an Advisory Partner in the private equity firm NGP Energy Capital Management, where he has held various positions over the past 15 years in roles including firm management, investment evaluation, portfolio management, and transaction structuring and negotiation. Prior to NGP, Mr. Ray was a Partner in the law firm Thompson & Knight in Dallas, Texas, as a transactional lawyer specializing in venture capital, private equity, securities, mergers & acquisitions, and early-stage companies.

Dr. Ryan brings 30 years of experience in drug discovery and held positions at Millennium, GSK and most recently at Cubist. At Cubist he built and led Discovery Technologies, was co-head of Medicinal Chemistry and a member of Cubist’s research management team. He led teams working on inflammation and neuroscience in addition to antibacterial research and helped advance their clinical candidates, including Zerbaxa. Dr. Ryan brings broad experience in discovery from medicinal chemistry and structural biology to computational and biophysical methods to high throughput screening.

Gram-negative multi-drug-resistant infections represent a critical unmet medical need globally, with over 2 million drug resistant infections in the US each year. The landscape for commercialization of novel antibacterial therapies is rapidly evolving, and there remains a large market opportunity for new agents without cross-resistance to existing therapeutics for Gram-negative pathogens targeting multiple Gram-negative indications, including bacteremia, hospital and ventilator acquired pneumonia (HAP and VAP), and other complicated nosocomial infections.

About X-Biotix Therapeutics, Inc.

X-Biotix is a discovery, early preclinical-stage company that was spun out of X-Chem and incorporated in 2016, with a focus on delivering the next generation of antibiotics to combat multi-drug resistant Gram-negative pathogens. The company, located in Waltham, MA, is undertaking a multi-target discovery strategy to rapidly identify and validate novel small molecule scaffolds and advance them into development.