April 9, 2002: Mara Venture Fund invests in Carex, metabolic disease spin-out from IGBMC, Strasbourg, France

Start-up Carex raises 6 million euros from international investors

The company is a spin-off from the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology (IGBMC) based in Strasbourg, France. Mara Ventures wrote the initial business plan with two of the three scientific founders, Dr. Johan Auwerx from IGBMC and Prof. Samir Deeb form the University of Washington, Seattle. The third scientific founder is Prof. Pierre Chambon, director of the IGBMC, member of the French Academy of Sciences.

Mara Ventures co-invested alongside two re-known international venture capital groups, Sofinnova Partners from Paris and GIMV from Antwerp, Belgium. Bernard Gilly, partner at Sofinnova and previously CEO of Transgene, is acting CEO. He brings extensive operational and management experience to Carex. In addition, Jürgen Lehmann, previously head of the nuclear receptor program at Tularik, Inc. in San Francisco, joined the company as Chief Scientific Officer.

The company focuses on metabolic diseases such as diabetes and obesity. It has attracted major scientific expertise and scientific collaborations from several main European players in the nuclear receptor area, one of the major drug targets in metabolic diseases.

Carex' technology platform is based on medicinal chemistry, proprietary screening assays and an extensive target discovery program in collaboration with a major Scandinavian academic institute providing highly characterized patient material.

This investment clearly demonstrates Mara Venture's commitment to early stage investing. General partner Gaston Matthyssens represents Mara Ventures on the Board of Directors.