Cara uses $4M infusion for Shelton move

Thanks to a $4 million investment from Connecticut Innovations, Cara Therapeutics, formerly of Tarrytown, N.Y., has relocated to Shelton. After holding the grand opening last week, the biotech company is up and running, with a 41,000-square-foot facility, new labs and new jobs for Shelton inhabitants.

Cara”™s focus is developing original therapies to treat human diseases associated with pain and inflammation.

“Our efforts to develop cutting-edge health-care therapies depend greatly on two important factors ”“ strong investment partners and a highly educated work force,” said Derek Chalmers, Cara Therapeutics”™ CEO, president and director. “Connecticut offers both the capital support and the talented staff we require to succeed.”

The investment from Connecticut Innovations”™ BioScience Facilities Fund, the state”™s quasi-public venture capital firm, has given Cara a newly designed facility with more space. Although a large amount of the Tarrytown staff has stayed with the company, 40 new high-paying jobs were open to the people of Shelton, including 14 filled by displaced Bayer employees.

The Cara teams were given free reign to conceptualize and design the laboratories to their own specifications. Cara’s first patented compound, CR665, has entered clinical testing for acute pain.

“This is as early as it gets in terms of drug discovery,” said Dr. Bill Martin, Cara”™s director of molecular screening.

“Our investment in Cara Therapeutics will not only expand Connecticut”™s biotech lab resources, but also help to create the kind of high-paying research jobs that are critical to growing our state”™s technology economy,” said Peter Longo, president and executive director of Connecticut Innovations.
“The addition of Cara Therapeutics to Connecticut”™s biotechnology sector is not only welcome, it is further proof that high-tech investment and job growth in our state is working,” said Paul R. Pescatello, president and CEO of Connecticut United for Research Excellence.