VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• AGI Dermatics takes in $5M for skincare products (release)
• Myconostica raises £3.9 for fungal diagnostics (GenomeWeb)
  
• Germany’s Noxxon gets €1M grant for aptamer drugs (release)

AGI Dermatics takes in $5M for skincare products – Freeport, N.Y.-based AGI Dermatics, a startup concentrated on skincare products, raised $5 million in a new funding round. Investors included Trevi Health Ventures and Spring Mountain Capital.

AGI makes cosmetic ingredients and is working on developing topical pharmaceutical lotions as well. Its leading drug candidate is called T4N5 Liposome Lotion, which AGI says includes a DNA-repair enzyme intended to repair ultraviolet damage to the skin. The company is currently testing the product as a preventive treatment for skin cancer.

Germany’s Noxxon gets €1M grant for aptamer drugs — Noxxon, a German biotech aiming to make drugs from nucleic-acid snippets called aptamers, received a grant from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The €1 million ($1.6 million) grant is intended to support Noxxon’s drug-discovery program, which we covered at greater length last May.

Myconostica raises £3.9M for fungal diagostics – Myconostica, a U.K. biotech that spun out of the University of Manchester, raised £3.9 million ($7.7 million) in a third funding round, GenomeWeb reports. Investors included Amphion Innovations, Nexus Medical Partners, and Innoven Partenaires.

The company is working on rapid diagnostic tests for life-threatening fungal infections. Its first product is a test for several types of fungal infection that is nearing approval in Europe, and which Myconostica thinks could receive U.S. approval by the fourth quarter.

(UPDATED: See below.)

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Noxxon Pharma, a Berlin-based biotech, raised 37 million euros ($50 million) to help push its first aptamer-based drug candidates for kidney and eye disease into clinical trials.

The main new investors included TVM Capital, Sofinnova Partners, and Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners.

Aptamers are short stretches of DNA or RNA — generally known as oligonucleotides — that are designed specifically via an evolution-style process to latch onto a specific protein or other biological target. Because their drug properties could rival those of antibodies — currently used in hit drugs such as Genentech’s Avastin — while being far easier to make, aptamers have drawn a fair amount of excitement over the years. But the first aptamer-based drug, Eyetech Pharmaceutical’s Macugen for age-related macular degeneration, has been a disappointment in the marketplace — in part because a Genentech antibody-based drug appeared to demonstrate superior results.

Check out Noxxon’s release here (HTML) or here (PDF).