Esperance Pharmaceuticals today announced a final closing of $8.1 million in financing. The company announced a $7.5 million first closing in June; the additional money came from unnamed investors in the Baton Rouge and Shreveport areas who are “dedicated to fostering the growing biotech community in the state.” Esperance is developing drugs that, if successful, will attack cancer cells without harming healthy cells. The money will support further clinical development of EP-100, currently the company’s lead candidate drug, and expansion of the company’s pipeline.
The financing includes $4.5 million from French drugmaker Sanofi, one of the five largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Other investors include Louisiana Fund I, Themelios Ventures, Research Corporation Technologies and Louisiana Technology Fund. “We hope this serves to encourage other biotechnology companies to capitalize on all this region has to offer,” says Joe Lovett, chairman of the board of Esperance and managing general partner with Louisiana Fund I. The company was founded on technology developed at LSU, the LSU AgCenter and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center.
If Esperance ultimately creates a successful drug, it would draw attention to the local biotech sector and potentially impact perception of the region and Louisiana as a whole, says Terry Jones, head of the local Regional Innovation Organization. “It helps us to put what we’re doing on everyone’s radar screen,” he says. —David Jacobs
