New Haven startup BioRelix has gotten a $4.25 million investment, $500,000 of it from Connecticut taxpayers, for ongoing development of treatments against human pathogens, authorities say.
Connecticut Innovations Inc. in Rocky Hill, the state’s quasi-public agency overseeing technology-based economic development, announced Wednesday its BioRelix infusion through its Eli Whitney Fund.
The rest was from a consortium of investors that, along with CI, includes CHL Medical Partners, Novartis Bioventures, New Leaf Ventures, Aisling Capital, Elm Street Ventures, Alexandria Equities.
BioRelix is developing antibiotics using bits of an infection’s own messenger gene, ribonucleic acid (RNA), against it.
The company, currently housed at New Haven’s thriving research cluster, 5 Science Park, consists of former Bayer Pharmaceuticals and Yale University scientists and researchers led by co-founder and former Yale professor Ronald Breaker.
Last September, BioRelix secured a $3.65 million venture investment from unidentified investors.
CI said the global antibiotics market is estimated at $37 billion.
