NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Protea Biosciences will use a new $1.7 million investment from the state of West Virginia to continue developing a new protein biomarker technology, which will be used to identify proteins in tissue and in other biological samples.
Charleston, W. Va.-based Protea received the equity and debt financing from the West Virginia Jobs Investment Trust, the state's public venture capital fund. Protea said that it expects the new technology, which will be used to discover disease-specific proteins that could be targets for new pharmaceuticals, to be available in 2010.
"Protea's success is spear-heading the development of an entire new industry for West Virginia, one that will generate major long-term growth and quality job creation for our state," Andy Zulauf, executive director of WVJIT, said in a statement.
Protea said that this year the firm doubled in size to 30 full-time employees, and it plans to expand to as many as 200 employees by 2013.