Biolex Therapeutics, a privately held biopharmaceutical company, has announced the closing of a $30 million Series C financing. The financing was led by Investor Growth Capital of New York and included the participation of two other new investors, JP Morgan Securities, Inc. and Easton Capital.

The financing was oversubscribed and included strong participation from existing shareholders including Quaker BioVentures, Polaris Venture Partners, Intersouth Partners, Mitsui & Co. Venture Partners, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation and Dow Venture Capital. The funds will be used primarily to advance Biolex's lead drug candidate Locteron into phase III clinical development in hepatitis C, and to advance the company's other drug candidates.

The Company also announced that Sunny Sharma, MD, vice president with Investor growth capital, has joined the Biolex Board of Directors. "The response to this financing was outstanding and we believe that the additional expertise and resources of our new investors will complement the strong investor group that has supported the advancement of Biolex to date," said Jan Turek, Biolex's president and chief executive officer. "We welcome Dr Sharma to our board of directors and look forward to his contribution to this very experienced group that has been a great resource to Biolex."

"We are pleased to be a part of the Biolex story, which has some very interesting product and platform attributes," said Sunny Sharma, MD "Locteron has the potential to be a best-inclass interferon for the treatment of hepatitis C. We are also very excited about the company's glycosylation optimisation technology and its application in various product opportunities."