RCT Opens New Atlantic and Pacific Coast Offices; New Locations Will Provide Early-Stage Venture Capital and Management to Promising Biomedical Investment Opportunities.

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Research Corporation Technologies (RCT) has established new regional offices in Boston, Los Angeles and Raleigh-Durham, N.C.

RCT is a Tucson, Ariz.-based technology investment and management company that provides early-stage venture funding for promising biomedical companies and technologies. RCT has assets of more than $300 million to advance technology and product development. RCT's new offices will enhance the reach of its RCT BioVentures investment program and its other technology development activities. The RCT BioVentures program provides venture capital to companies whose technologies have the potential to become significant biomedical products. RCT also offers vital capital and management to advance promising new drugs, devices and diagnostics into clinical trials.

Managing Director Michael J. Berendt, Ph.D., and Associate Jeffrey B. Moore, Ph.D., will evaluate and manage early-stage investment opportunities from companies and entrepreneurial universities in the New England and mid-Atlantic areas. Doreen M. Grech, Ph.D., director of the Raleigh-Durham office, represents RCT to the technology-rich Research Triangle Park area in North Carolina and the southeast United States. In RCT's Los Angeles office, Director Paul M. Grand identifies innovations from biomedical companies and universities in the U.S. Pacific Coast region.

"Mike, Jeff, Doreen and Paul bring us valuable additional experience in drug discovery and development, operational management and private equity investing," said Shaun A. Kirkpatrick, RCT president and chief executive officer. "We are very pleased to welcome them to RCT."

RCT Boston Office

Michael J. Berendt, managing director. Prior to joining RCT, Berendt was a managing director of AEA Investors Inc., where he led an investment team focused on growth equity investments in life sciences companies.

Before joining AEA Investors, Berendt was senior vice president for research for the Pharmaceutical Division of Bayer Corp. His responsibilities included the Bayer Research Center in West Haven, Conn., a facility housing more than 400 researchers and support staff engaged in the discovery and development of new medicines for treating cancer, diabetes, obesity and osteoporosis. Before Bayer, he was a group director responsible for antibiotic, immunology, inflammation, arthritis and pulmonary drug research at Pfizer Inc.

Berendt has served on the board of directors of Onyx Pharmaceuticals and Myriad Genetics. He is currently a director of Waters Corp., Intronn Inc., Northstar Neuroscience Inc., Nobex Corp., Nanostream Inc. and Catalyst Biosciences Inc.

He is a graduate of Ohio Dominican College and has a master's degree in microbiology from Miami University. He received a doctoral degree in medical microbiology and immunology from Hahnemann University and was awarded research fellowships from the National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society.

Jeffrey B. Moore, associate. Moore joined RCT as a Kauffman Fellow after completing an MBA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. Jeff brings more than 15 years of life sciences experience from biotechnology companies and leading academic institutions. Previously, he was associate director at Millennium Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Mass., evaluating licensing and partnering opportunities. Prior to Millennium, he worked as a scientist in multiple disease areas at Scriptgen Pharmaceuticals (now Anadys).

Before joining Scriptgen, Moore was a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School, developing gene mapping techniques to identify transporters responsible for anticancer drug resistance.

He received his doctoral degree in pathology at the University of Oxford in England and earned his bachelor's degree in biology from the University of New Brunswick in Canada.

Contact Berendt and Moore at Research Corporation Technologies, One Broadway, 14th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02142, 203-314-5545 phone, 617-225-4436 fax, e-mail: [e-mail], [e-mail].

RCT Raleigh-Durham Office

Doreen M. Grech, director. Grech has held positions of increasing scope and responsibility in research, drug development and venture capital. She joined RCT from A.M. Pappas and Associates in Research Triangle Park, N.C., where she was recently principal, fund management, and previously director, scientific and clinical development. In these positions, she was actively involved with fund portfolio companies, including regulatory and clinical development, product positioning, and market and competitive analysis. She also directed and managed client projects related to clinical development, regulatory strategy, technology review and product licensing.

Before A.M. Pappas and Associates, Grech was a clinical research scientist at Cato Research Ltd., in Durham, N.C., where she planned, executed and managed clinical research studies for drugs and biologics. Grech was also a research associate at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Md., and a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School in Boston. She received her doctoral degree in pharmacology and toxicology from the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, a master's degree in physiology from Texas A&M University in College State and a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of California in Santa Barbara.

Contact Grech at Research Corporation Technologies, 2530 Meridian Parkway, Suite 300, Durham, NC 27713, 919-806-4908 phone, 919-806-4301 fax, [e-mail].

RCT Los Angeles Office

Paul M. Grand, director. Prior to joining RCT, Grand was co-founder and vice president for operations of Imagine Pharmaceuticals in San Diego. Imagine is developing a platform to selectively deliver therapeutics and other compounds across the blood brain barrier. He was also co-founder and CEO of MicroSurgeon in Los Angeles. MicroSurgeon is developing a microwave thermal ablation device for the treatment of solid tumors.

Grand has extensive experience in new company formation and fund raising. Since 1990, he has built, operated, recruited management and raised financing for eight high technology, medical device and biotechnology companies. He has employed more than 300 people in the Los Angeles area and served as CEO in companies with up to 150 employees. Grand also was a managing director for Fruition Ventures, a group of private equity investors focused primarily on early-stage information technology companies.

He is a frequent panelist at biomedical conferences, and he is a member of the Los Angeles Life Science Roundtable. Grand has lectured on entrepreneurship and venture funding to faculty, students and scientists at the University of California in Los Angeles, and he serves as an investment advisor to the LARTA NIH Commercialization Assistance Program for National Institute of Health Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program awardees.

Contact Grand at Research Corporation Technologies, 10956 Weyburn Ave., Suite 222, Los Angeles, CA 90024, 310-824-1700 phone, 310-388-5752 fax, [e-mail].