Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals was established in 2006 to advance and commercialize breakthrough synthetic chemistry developed by world-leading organic chemist Professor Andrew G. Myers, Ph.D., Chair, Department of Chemical Biology at Harvard University. This ground-breaking and transformational advance in chemistry provides the company with a broad-range of commercial opportunities across a number of significant disease categories. The Company’s initial focus is on the discovery and development of novel antibiotics to treat drug-resistant infections. This enabling technology also provides meaningful opportunities in inflammation and cancer.

This patented technology, proprietary to Tetraphase, enables the ability to overcome a key barrier (the lack of chemical diversity) to the development of novel antibiotics by dramatically expanding the chemical universe for drug discovery in a well-established class of drugs, the tetracycline class. This class of antibiotics has proven to be safe, effective and can be orally and parenterally administered. In addition, this class also possesses attractive properties to treat inflammation and cancer. Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals has exclusive worldwide rights to this technology. The company’s initial financing raised $25 million from a group of leading venture capital firms.