Newly formed company Nexus Biosystems closes series A round, relocates to new offices

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, Dec. 20 - Nexus Biosystems, Inc. said it closed its recent series A financing round.

Nexus chief executive officer John Lillig was the lead investor. Other investors included Rob Neeper, Nexus vice president of operations, Mark Chee, who serves on the Nexus board of directors and Paxanic Tazoka, Ltd.

In conjunction with the financing round, the company said it relocated to its new 37,000 square foot corporate headquarters in Poway, Calif.

As a provider of innovative automation solutions, software applications, consumables and services to pharmaceutical, biotech, agrichemical and academic research laboratories worldwide, Nexus said it is pleased to have attracted a strong group of series A investors.

The amount of financing raised was not disclosed.

Nexus, which was formed by a recent management buyout of businesses units of Discovery Partners International, Inc., provides a high-productivity line of product offerings in three related fields, including storage and high-speed retrieval of large compound collections in specially designed inert, frozen environments, automated sample incubation, imaging and analysis for protein crystallography and chemical synthesis automation using the industry-leading Irori technologies for the development of combinatorial chemistry libraries.

With a long-term customer base, Nexus said it is well positioned for continued growth in these drug-discovery and chemical-research markets.

"As a separate company, we will be able to more intently focus on the development of innovative product offerings as well as work more directly with our customers," Lillig said in a statement.

Discovery Partners, a San Diego biotechnology company, announced Oct. 15 that it sold certain assets related to its legacy Discovery Systems business to Nexus Biosystems.

Lillig was the former chief technology officer for Discovery Partners, according to a Discovery Partners news release.

Under the terms of that agreement, Nexus acquired the Irori chemical synthesis systems business, the Crystal Farm automated protein crystallization business, and the Universal Store compound storage systems business.

Discovery Partners will retain royalty-free access to the transferred technologies as required to perform services or collaborations with its integrated drug discovery platform, the release said.

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