What does $30 million buy a start-up these days? If it's NanoBio it’s a dozen new employees (including seven Pfizer refugees) and a couple of products very close to commercialization.

The Ann Arbor-based firm received $30 million in private equity from Perseus in 2006. That allowed the spin-off from the University of Michigan's Center for Biological Nanotechnology to expand its staff to 20 employees and three interns.

"We pretty much doubled in size right away," says John Coffey, vice president of business development for NanoBio.

It's also playing a major role in financing the second phase of clinical trails for two of its drugs. Those drugs help treat herpes and nail fungus. NanoBio expects to begin licensing them to major pharmaceutical companies in 2009.

It's also developing products for vaccines. Those are also going through clinical trails and could be up for licensing as soon as late next year or 2010.

"There is some significant interest in the vaccines," Coffey says.

That type of success would allow NanoBio to do more hiring, but Coffey was a little coy about how much. He said it would happen, but probably not at the same speed as when the Perseus made it investment two years ago.

Source: John Coffey, vice president of business development for NanoBio
Writer: Jon Zemke