BERKELEY, Calif., Oct. 05, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Valitor, a biotechnology company engineering better medicines to conquer drug limitations, today announced that it has closed a Series B financing and named Steven Lo as chief executive officer and member of the board. Lo, a veteran biopharmaceutical executive with over 25 years in the industry, joins Wesley Jackson, president and chief scientific officer, and William (Sandy) White, recently appointed chief development officer, to provide executive leadership to Valitor.The company raised $28 million through a Series B financing, which was led by Morningside, and included support from additional new investors -- First Spark Ventures and ExSight Ventures and existing investors -- Berkeley Catalyst Fund and Pandect Bioventures.The financing will support the companys lead programs in ophthalmology and vision-threatening diseases, utilizing Valitors groundbreaking Multivalent Polymer (MVP) technology platform that originated at U.C. The resulting MVP compounds can be engineered to overcome specific drug design challenges, including optimized pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic properties, target engagement, tissue localization, therapeutic durability, and safety. Since launching Valitor, he has been the principal investigator on nine NIH projects to optimize the manufacturing, characterization, and formulation of multivalent protein conjugate drugs and to evaluate their performance in relevant disease models. The biopolymers and bioactive molecules are interchangeable, which enables Valitor to assemble novel macromolecular entities that are engineered to overcome a multitude of specific drug design challenges for their target indications.