Drug developer exceeds financing target

ContraFect Corp., the Yonkers-based biotechnology company developing drug treatments for life-threatening infectious diseases, has raised $11.8 million in financing from privately placed convertible notes.

Company officers had initially targeted $5 million in financing from the notes sale, which was oversubscribed. The funds will be used to develop ContraFect”™s most advanced product, CF-301, a novel bacteria-infecting viral enzyme that targets staphylococcus aureus bacteremia, a blood-born infection that kills 30,000 people annually in the U.S. alone.

Dr. Robert Nowinski, ContraFect”™s founder and CEO, in a press release called the financing “critical” to further developing CF-301, “our paradigm-shifting, first-in-class drug for drug- resistant bacterial infections.”

The Maxim Group L.L.C. in Manhattan was the company”™s private placement agent.

Founded five years ago in Manhattan, ContraFect in 2011 opened its Yonkers headquarters and laboratories at 28 Wells Ave. in the i.park Hudson office and manufacturing complex.