ConjuGon raises $3.3 million to fund clinical trials

Madison, Wis.- ConjuGon, Inc., a privately-held biopharmaceutical company, has raised $3.3 million in an investment round led by Rosetta Partners, a private investment firm based in Lake Forest, Ill.

The Madison-based ConjuGon will use the capital for clinical trials of its treatment for the infections of large wounds, and to fund the development and testing of its core technology - therapies for the treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.

In recent years, antibiotic resistance has created a crisis in medicine, and it is responsible for an estimated hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. ConjuGon, located in the MG&E Innovation Center in University Research Park, was founded in part to develop new therapeutics to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Sal Braico, chief operating officer of ConjuGon, said investor interest “highlights the significance of the problem of antibiotic resistance” and the potential of the company's antibacterial technology.

Gary Greenwood of Rosetta Partners, which focuses exclusively on biotechnology investments, noted that ConjuGon's antibacterial technology has performed beyond expectations in animal tests. Joining Rosetta Partners in the latest financing round was Wisconsin Investment Partners, an angel investment group.

New direction

The company also announced that Greenwood, a partner in Rosetta Partners, and four other executives would join co-founder Richard Burgess on ConjuGon's board of directors. In addition to Greenwood, the new directors include:

• Anthony J. Clemento, Jr., a former executive at Covance, Seragen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Schering-Plough, and Centocor.

• Alicia Loffler, director of the Kellogg Center for Biotechnology at Northwestern University.

• Tom Rolfs, a member of the Wisconsin Investment Partners and a partner of Red Top Capital.

• Carl Spalding, past president and chief operating officer of PAREXEL, a global contract research organization and biopharmaceutical outsourcing company.

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