Biotech Research Campus Lands New Tenant

Kannapolis, N.C. — Angiogen, a company development treatments for people with cancer, will relocate its headquarters to the North Carolina Research Campus.

Angiogen, which is privately held, has operations in Kannapolis and in Evanston, Ill.

"We look forward to a long relationship with the NC Research Campus, the State of North Carolina and our shareholders,” said Mark Arizmendi, chief executive officer of Angiogen. “We feel that being located with other biotech entrepreneurs will be accretive for Angiogen and the other stakeholders in the park.”

Arizmendi will be based at the Research Campus along with a scientist and the company's chief financial officer. The scientist and CFO will split time between Illinois and Kannapolis, according to Arizmendi.

The Research Campus is the brainchild of billionaire David Murdock, owner of Dole Food Company and Castle & Cook, the development firm constructing the campus.

A venture fund created by Murdock recently disclosed a multi-million dollar investment in a company that remains unidentified. Angiogen is not that company, a spokesperson for the Research Campus said.

Angiogen is currently testing what it calls the “Angiostatic Cocktail.”

The focus of the company’s research is angiogenesis – the formation of new blood vessels – and its role in cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, angiogensis is a process controlled by certain chemicals. Angiogenesis inhibitors stop the process.

Angiogenesis plays an important role in the growth and spread of cancer,” the Institute’s Web site reports. “New blood vessels ‘feed’ the cancer cells with oxygen and nutrients, allowing these cells to grow, invade nearby tissue, spread to other parts of the body, and form new colonies of cancer cells.”

The Angiostatic Cocktail is based on work done by Dr. Gerald Soff. The cocktail was developed at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.