PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a privately held, clinical-stage biotechnology company developing drugs to treat diabetes, metabolic disease and cardiovascular disease, announced today that it has raised a total of $48.4 million from its Series B financing following receipt of the third tranche to advance the company's product development programs.

In December 2009, PhaseBio raised $25M in a Series B financing led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation by OSI Investment Holdings (now Astellas Venture Management) and previous investors Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, Hatteras Venture Partners and Fletcher Spaght Ventures. These investors have now provided an additional $23 million, which will support Phase 2b clinical testing of Glymera for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, a Phase 1 clinical study of Vasomera in patients with stage 1 and 2 essential hypertension and additional preclinical work to support further clinical development of Vasomera for the treatment of acute and chronic heart failure and pulmonary hypertension, and to complete a Phase 1/2a clinical study of Insumera, a fully native mature insulin fused to ELP, for type 2 diabetes.

"This additional investment with participation by all of our investors reflects their confidence in the PhaseBio product development programs, our versatile ELP technology platform and the extraordinary progress we have made in advancing our pipeline," said Christopher Prior, Ph.D., chief executive officer of PhaseBio. "This provides us great flexibility in continuing to grow the value of PhaseBio by advancing our best-in-class GLP-1 analogue, Glymera, our complementary ultra long-acting basal insulin, Insumera, and our first-in-class, VPAC2 selective agonist, Vasomera, through further clinical studies to drive higher value partnerships," continued Dr. Prior.

About PhaseBio

PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel drugs to treat diabetes, metabolic and cardiovascular disease. The company's proprietary platform technology uses elastin-like biopolymers (ELPs) to increase the half-life, bioavailability, efficacy and ease of administration of therapeutic drugs and to reduce their side effects. ELPs have been engineered to control the rate of absorption into the circulation which results in a steady state pharmacokinetic profile exhibiting a unique combination of slow absorption and prolonged half-life providing an optimal drug exposure. The company's lead development candidates are Glymera, a GLP-1 analogue for type 2 diabetes, Vasomera, a vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) agonist for uncontrolled hypertension, acute and chronic heart failure and pulmonary arterial hypertension, and Insumera, a novel mature insulin ELP-fusion. PhaseBio is a privately owned company with headquarters and research laboratories in Malvern, Pennsylvania.