Raise money, move downstream

The trickle of genomics and proteomics platform companies moving into drug development has become commonplace over the past year, and venture capitalists clearly are willing to put up big money to help selected companies make the transition.

The latest companies to announce moves out of the pure platform space into drug development are Inpharmatica Ltd. (London, U.K.) and Signature BioScience Inc. (Hayward, Calif.). Inpharmatica, a structural bioinformatics company, last week raised £31.25 million ($44.2 million) in a series B round, giving the company a post-money valuation of £56 million ($79 million). Signature was to announce today a $43 million financing...