VCA Stocks

Venture capitalists have agreed to nurture PhaseRx, a nascent Seattle biotech, with funding of up to $19 million to pursue a pioneering technique that could help turn off harmful genes.  PhaseRx seeks to develop a way to deliver therapies based on siRNA, or small interfering RNA, a technique that allows genes linked to maladies to be switched off.  That research field is one of the hottest in the biotechnology sector, said David Miller, an analyst with Biotech Stock Research. In late 2006, pharma giant Merck paid $1.1 billion for Sirna Therapeutics, triggering a “land rush” on small private companies working in the field, Miller said. Interest in this new field is “huge,” he said.  Despite the RNA interference hype, the technology has a long way to go, said Miller. “Nobody has figured out how to deliver an RNA-based drug in humans yet.”