CULVER CITY, Calif., Dec. 8, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — Sofie
Biosciences, a developer of agents and devices for the molecular
imaging of disease, announced today the closing of an additional $2
million from new and existing investors. Funds will be used for the
development of new PET imaging agents and for enhancements to their
PET imaging systems and chemistry units. The round includes the
first institutional and large corporate financing to the firm
including investment by the Cycad Group.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20101208/LA13841LOGO)
“This investment represents an important step towards achieving
our goal of rapidly commercializing new PET technologies and
imaging agents in an effort to make PET more widely accessible to
more physicians and scientists,” said Patrick Phelps, President and
CEO of Sofie.
Sofie Biosciences is developing novel molecular imaging agents
to enable earlier and more accurate diagnosis, treatment selection,
and therapeutic monitoring of major medical disorders. Sofie is
combining new PET imaging agents with innovative imaging systems to
provide researchers and physicians with tools to better investigate
the biology of disease.
Sofie’s founders are leading scientists and clinicians in the
field. They include the inventor of the PET scanner and Chairman of
the Department of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology at UCLA, Dr.
Michael Phelps; the Director of The Eli and Edythe Broad Center of
Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA, Dr. Owen
Witte; the Director of The Ahmanson Biological Imaging Division at
UCLA, Dr. Johannes Czernin; and the Director of the NCI Nanosystems
Cancer Center at Caltech, Dr. James Heath.
Sofie has obtained an exclusive license from the University of
California to a family of PET molecular imaging agents collectively
referred to as FAC. FAC has been shown in preclinical animal
research a
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