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Megan Health,
Inc. is a privately held company founded in 1993 by Dr. Brian L. Clevinger
and Dr. Roy Curtiss III. The start-up was financed by Upjohn Co. (the
major pharmaceutical manufacturer), A/W Co. (a joint venture of Washington
University), and Moshe Alafi (a California-based venture capitalist that
tries to turn Washington University research into commercial products).
CID Equity Partners financed the second round in 1996, raising $5 million.
In 1998-99, the company raised another $3 million by supplementing its
financing with R&D agreements with corporate partners and grants from
the National Institutes of Health.
Megan Health
Inc.'s purpose is to develop human and animal vaccines using patented
gene modification technologies. The new technologies modify organisms
that normally cause disease in man and/or animals. The goal of Megan Health
Inc. is "to develop safe, practical, proprietary vaccines to protect
humans and animals from a variety of disease challenges."
Dr. Clevinger
received a Ph.D. in Immunology and M.S. in Microbiology from the Indiana
School of Medicine. Formerly, he was Chairman of Biomedical Sciences,
and Associate Professor at the Washington University School of Dental
Medicine. Over the past nine years, Dr. Clevinger has been active in the
founding and operation of several companies in the biological, medical
and pharmaceutical fields, including Field Inversion Technologies, of
which he was president; Fiber Imaging Inc. and Dimensional Data of which
he was a founder, president, and board member; and LipoMatrix, Inc., of
which he was a founder and board member. Since 1987, Dr. Clevinger has
also been President and Chief Operating Officer of A/W Company, a limited
partnership formed by Washington University and Alafi Capital Company.
Dr. Curtiss
has been a Freiberg Professor of Biology at Washington University in St.
Louis since 1984. Dr. Curtiss is a leading authority on Escherichia coli
and Salmonella and developed the technology, which serves as a basis for
the Company. From 1991 to 1994, Dr. Curtiss was the Director of Washington
University's Center for Plant Science and Biotechnology, and from 1983
to 1993, Dr. Curtiss was Chairman of the University's Department of Biology.
He received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Chicago.
On December
4, 2000 the sale of Megan Health Inc. was finalized when AVANT Immunotherapeutics,
Inc. announced that it had completed the acquisition. Megan Health will
now operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of AVANT. In connection with
the acquisition, AVANT will issue approximately 1.9 million shares valued
at approximately $18 million to Megan Health's current shareholders. AVANT
also announced that Pfizer Inc. will develop animal health and food safety
vaccines based on the Megan Health technology.
© 2001 Missouri Innovation Center
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