Biotech Firm VIRxSYS Raises $9.8M of $40M Offering - CBL
By Citybizlist Staff
GAITHERSBURG, Md. -- Biotechnology firm VIRxSYS has raised $9.8 million of a $40 million mixed offering, according to a Reg D filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Principals named in the filing are: Riku Rautsola, president, CEO and director; CFO Gerard Fleury; executive Robert Ackmann; Chairman Lawrence Michaelis; and directors Helmer Agersborg, James Kehoe, William McIntosh, John Phair, William Sick, William Turner, Prince Zachariah and Franz Schmadl.
Gaithersburg-based VIRxSYS uses RNA programming to develop therapies for serious human diseases.
The company is paying $82,712 in sales commissions to Signature Capital Securities LLC of Portland , Maine .
Reg D filing: http://tinyurl.com/y8jqlnz
Also at Citybizlist, see:
VIRxSYS Awarded Maryland Stem Cell Grant
VIRxSYS and Lentigen Announce Litigation Settlement
Bios from VIRxSYS' Web site:
Riku H. Rautsola, PhD
Dr. Riku Rautsola is the Company's President and CEO, and has more than 20 years of international biopharmaceutical experience. Prior to joining VIRxSYS, Dr. Rautsola was President and CEO of Borean Pharma A/S, a biotechnology company in Denmark specializing in novel, second-generation antibody analogue protein therapeutics. Dr. Rautsola also was CEO of Cosmix Molecular Biologicals, Ltd., and he held various senior executive positions at Boehringer Ingelheim, Beiersdorf and Fresenius, each of which are leading international biopharmaceutical companies. During his career, Dr. Rautsola initiated a program with UNAIDS, WHO, Unicef and the UN for the prevention of Mother-To-Child transmission of HIV. He also co-founded and chaired "Accelerating Access," the five-company organization (BMS, Boehringer, GSK, Merck, and Roche) focused on providing low-cost HIV treatments in developing countries. Dr. Rautsola has a doctorate in health economics from the University of Munich, Germany.
Gerard F. Fleury, CPA
Mr. Fleury is the Company's Executive Vice President and CFO. He joined VIRxSYS in 2004 and has over 25 years of business, operating and financial experience, 17 of which have been as CEO, COO, or CFO of technology companies. Prior to joining VIRxSYS, Mr. Fleury served as both CEO and CFO of McCabe & Associates, as COO and CFO of Media Cybernetics, and in various senior management positions with Deloitte & Touche. Mr. Fleury has significant experience in domestic and international operations, debt and equity financings, intellectual property, in-bound and out-bound licensing, and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Fleury graduated from Towson University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and a minor in Law.
Lawrence Michaelis, MD
Dr. Michaelis is the Chairman of the Board of VIRxSYS. He attended Indiana University Medical School and trained in General, Thoracic, and Cardiovascular Surgery at the University of Virginia, where he also earned a Master's Degree in Surgical Physiology. After four years as Senior Surgeon at the National Heart and Lung Institute of the NIH, he was the first Chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Northwestern University Medical School (NUMS) and at Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) in Chicago. Dr. Michaelis served as Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs at NMH and as an Associate Dean of NUMS; as Vice President of the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation; and as President of Northwestern Healthcare Corporation. In addition, he is a past president of the American Heart Association of Metropolitan Chicago. He remains a Tenured Professor of Surgery at NUMS, and continues to assist in fundraising for the Northwestern Memorial Foundation. He has authored more than 130 peer-reviewed journal articles.
Helmer P. K. Agersborg, Jr., PhD
Dr. Agersborg is a Director of the Company. His professional experience includes roles in a number of development-stage pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Agersborg is Chairman and President of Afferon Corporation, a company developing a treatment for incontinence, and was previously the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President of CollaGenex, a public company that recently began marketing its first product. Dr. Agersborg previously was President of Wyeth-Ayerst Research, the pharmaceutical research arm of American Home Products, where he oversaw the research and development of vaccines, nutritionals, and a variety of pharmaceutical products. He received his PhD in clinical physiology from the University of Tennessee and his BA in physiology from Southern Illinois University.
James V. Kehoe
Mr. Kehoe is a Director of the Company. Mr. Kehoe is currently the Principal of Highmark Associates, a consulting firm serving the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He also serves as Senior Consultant and Member of the Scientific Advisory Board at The Genesis Group. Mr. Kehoe served as Executive Vice President of Chiron Corporation, President of the Immunodiagnostics Division of Becton Dickinson, Inc., Vice President and General Manager of Pfizer Diagnostics, and Vice President of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Kehoe earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering, Summa Cum Laude, from the College of the City of New York, and a Master of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.
L. William McIntosh, MBA
Mr. McIntosh is a Director of the Company. He brings to VIRxSYS both depth and breadth of business experience, with more than 30 years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology experience in major, mid-sized, and start-up companies. His skills span marketing, sales, business development, and product development. Mr. McIntosh is currently the CEO of Q-RNA, a biotechnology company focused on protein misfolding or amyloid diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. He began his career at Merck and Co., Inc., where he served in a variety of management positions. He also served as President and Chief Operating Officer for FASgen, Inc., and as President and Chief Executive Officer for Nexell Therapeutics, Inc. In addition, Mr. McIntosh has served in senior management positions at Medco Containment Services; Boehringer Mannheim Pharmaceuticals Corporation; Zynaxis, Inc.; Smith Kline Beecham Pharmaceuticals; and VIMRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Mr. McIntosh received both his BS and MBA degrees from Lehigh University, Pennsylvania.
John P. Phair, MD
Dr. John P. Phair is Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. He is a world-class authority on HIV and infectious disease and brings to VIRxSYS a career focused on host defense in infectious diseases and the treatment of HIV disease. Most recently, he was the Chair of the AIDS Research Advisory Committee at the National Institutes of Health (NIAID). He has also served as Director of the AIDS Program at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital, as an Executive Committee Member of the AIDS Clinical Trial Group, and as a Chairman of the Northwestern University Hospital Task Force on AIDS. Dr. Phair has published more than 300 articles throughout his career, and has served as Editor of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes since 1998.
Franz W. Schmadl, M.Sc.
Mr. Schmadl is a Director of the Company, and he is the President and Chief Investment Officer of OSV Partners LLC and Chairman of Mount Swiss Investment AG. He holds a Masters degree in economics from the University of Munich. Mr. Schmadl started his investment career 1984, joining Dresdner Bank AG as an equity research analyst covering US pharmaceuticals. He held several senior positions in the investment management and banking industries. Mr.Schmadl was instrumental in founding OSV Partners in 1992 and he took the company private in 2007 to develop it into a broad based specialist investment boutique. In order to expand into Switzerland and to develop a private equity business, he founded Mount Swiss Investment AG in 2007. Since 2004 Mr. Schmadl also serves as Chairman in his charity organization, The Rosemarie Foundation - Education for a Better World.
William N. Sick, Jr.
Mr. Sick is a Director and a Co-Founder of the Company. Mr. Sick is a former Co-Managing Director of Signature Capital LLC, a venture capital firm that he co-founded. He is also Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Business Resources International, Inc., and in that role has been a Founder, Officer, or Director for 13 early-stage companies. During the 1980's, Mr. Sick was Chief Executive Officer of American National Can Company, in Chicago after its creation in an LBO transaction and in Paris following its sale to Pechiney SA. Prior to that time, he was Executive Vice President and a Director of Texas Instruments Incorporated. At Texas Instruments, Mr. Sick served in a variety of management positions, including President of the Texas Instruments Semiconductor and President of Texas Instruments Asia. Mr. Sick is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, where he is a former chairman, and of Millennium Park, Inc. and the Santa Fe Institute. From 1996-2006, he was a Trustee of Rice University, where he received his Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science Degrees in Electrical Engineering.
William J. Turner, MBA
Mr. Turner is a Director and Co-Founder of the Company, and is also Managing Director of Signature Capital LLC, a venture capital firm that he co-founded. From 1983 to 1989, Mr. Turner served as President, COO, and a Director of Automatic Data Processing (ADP). In 1989, Mr. Turner formed Turner and Partners, a management services firm, specializing in the management of leveraged buy-outs. For one client, Forstmann Little, he served as Executive Chairman and/or Chief Executive Officer for over 20 separate business units with combined annual sales of over $2.5 billion. Mr. Turner previously served as the President of Texas Instruments' Consumer Products Division, and also served in various systems engineering, marketing, and senior management positions at Sylvania Electronics and Digital Equipment Corporation. Mr. Turner has served on Freddie Mac's Board from 1990 to 2006. He also has also served on the Boards of several private venture companies. He is currently serving on the Boards of Helium.com, Ourstage.com, EggsOvernight, NetNumber and VIRxSYS and has previously served on 2 telecommunications related Boards (Acoustic Technologies and Tango) and 1 medical device/consumer electronic Board (Zounds Hearing). Mr. Turner received his undergraduate degree in mathematics from the University of Maine and a Masters degree in Business Administration from Northeastern University.
Prince K. Zachariah, MD, PhD
Dr. Zachariah is a Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, as well as the Medical Director for the Office of Information Technology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Zachariah received his medical degree from Memorial University of Newfoundland, and received two doctorates in pharmacology/microbiology and in biochemistry, from the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Zachariah has received numerous awards and fellowships, including "The Best Doctor in America" on two separate occasions, and he has an extensive list of publications and abstracts to his credit.