Zacharon Raises $500,000

Zacharon Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego startup that got $3.5 million in venture capital and a $2.2 million research grant in 2008, has raised another $500,000 in additional funding that includes debt, securities, and warrants or rights, according to a recent regulatory filing. The company intends to raise $1.9 million. As Luke reported two years ago, Zacharon is developing small molecule drugs to block the production of complex carbohydrates known as glycans, which can alter the function of proteins. While investors were not disclosed, Zacharon’s initial funding came from San Diego’s Avalon Ventures and Avalon partner Jay Lichter remains on the board. Although Lichter served as CEO two years ago, Robin Jackman is now identified as the biotech’s president and CEO.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.