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BRANFORD, Conn., Jan. 21 /PRÄ¢¹½ÊÓƵAPPwire/ -- Cellular Genomics Inc. (CGI), a chemical genetics based drug discovery and development company, today announced that it has raised $22.3 million in the initial close of a Series C private equity financing. This Series C Round is being led by Lilly BioVentures, and has been joined by new investors Coastview Capital and Emerging Technology Partners, as well as existing investors including Connecticut Innovations, Flagship Ventures, MPM Capital, and Vector Fund Management.

"We are very pleased to have attracted new investors with such broad knowledge of the drug discovery and development process, and are gratified by the continued strong support of our distinguished group of existing investors," said Louis Matis, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of CGI. "Building on the rapid progress we have made to date, the funds raised in this round will allow us to advance our novel and exciting drug discovery programs in cancer, angiogenesis, and autoimmune/inflammatory diseases into clinical development and to achieve key clinical milestones."

Upon this first close of the financing, Nick Colangelo, Managing Director of Lilly BioVentures, and Douglas Reed, M.D., Managing Director of Vector Fund Management, have joined the CGI board of directors. Existing board members include Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., Senior Managing Director and CEO of Flagship Ventures, Greg Gardiner, Ph.D., former Group Director of R & D at Pfizer, Ron Lennox, D.Phil., Partner at CHL Medical Partners, Louis Matis, M.D., President and CEO of CGI, and Michael Steinmetz, Ph.D., General Partner of MPM Capital.

"We were attracted by CGI's unique combination of breakthrough chemical genetics technologies and novel drug discovery programs," said Nick Colangelo, Managing Director of Lilly BioVentures. "The company has made impressive progress in leveraging their technologies for drug development, and we look forward to working with the company's outstanding team to realize the significant potential of their exciting therapeutic programs."

"CGI's technology can significantly improve our understanding of the biology of kinases, which is one of the most attractive classes of targets in the pharmaceutical industry today," said Douglas Reed, M.D., Managing Director of Vector Fund Management. "I've been impressed with how quickly CGI has been able to identify highly potent lead candidates against several novel kinase targets, and we expect this work to lead to a number of attractive pharmaceutical partnerships over the next few years."

About CGI:

Cellular Genomics Inc. (CGI) is a privately held genomics-based biopharmaceutical company that is pioneering a unique, highly integrated chemical genetics platform (Analog Sensitive Kinase Allele, or ASKA, technology) to discover and develop kinase and other signal transduction inhibitors for multiple clinical indications. CGI has established state-of-the art small molecule drug discovery capabilities, including proprietary chemical libraries generated through the company's High-throughput Accelerated Lead Optimization (HALO) platform. CGI has generated potent, selective lead candidates in three drug discovery and development programs in autoimmune and inflammatory disease, cancer, and angiogenesis that are advancing rapidly toward the clinic. CGI's proprietary chemical genetics technologies have broad applications across all phases of drug discovery, which the company is leveraging both to advance its own internal drug development programs as well as to establish partnerships with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The Company has established research collaborations with Affymetrix, Eli Lilly and Company, Pfizer Inc., Schering AG, and Serono SA. Please visit for additional information.