# A. M. Pappas & Associates

> A. M. Pappas & Associates is a VC fund in Durham backing Health Care and Medical. See 12 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Durham, United States
- Total investments: 12
- Last investment: Aug 2005
- Lead investor: 17%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- Website: http://ampappas.com/

A. M. Pappas & Associates is a VC fund in Durham focused on Health Care and Medical. M. Pappas & Associates is a venture capital firm investing in and nurturing promising companies, products, technologies, ventures, and other significant entrepreneurial opportunities. Currently, it has 350 million U.S. dollars in capital under management and has invested in more than 65 portfolio companies in the United States and Canada. Whileits focus is on serving investors and entrepreneurs, the firm also supports philanthropic interests in the realms of life sciences, public education, and entrepreneurial endeavors.M. Pappas & Associates manages three lines of business that include Pappas Ventures, manages a family of life science venture capital funds, whose portfolio companies include Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical, Chimerix, TESARO, TYRX, and Lumena Pharmaceuticals; specialized fund management, leverages its experience, expertise, and network on behalf of highly targeted investment fund opportunities; and translational medicine initiatives, envisions an opportunity to place A. M. Pappas & Associates at the nexus between researchers, university tech transfer offices, pharmaceutical companies, and disease-focused philanthropic organizations to select, guide, and manage academic-based translational product candidates to early development milestones that will attract private investment or industry interest.

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Health Care | 7 | 58% |
| Medical | 6 | 50% |
| Biotechnology | 6 | 50% |
| Pharmaceutical | 3 | 25% |
| Health Diagnostics | 3 | 25% |

11 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Series A | 3 | 25% |
| Series B | 2 | 17% |
| Series C | 2 | 17% |
| Series D | 1 | 8% |
| Series E | 1 | 8% |

7 stages tracked in total.

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Cerexa Inc. | Cerexa is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of a portfolio of novel anti-infective therapies for the treatment of serious and life-threatening infections. The company’s product portfolio includes Ceftaroline AcetateCeftaroline, an injectable cephalosporin that is used for the treatment of bacterial infections caused bygram-positive and gram-negative pathogens. | $50M | Series A | Aug 23, 2005 |  |
| Spherics | As of August 4, 2008, Spherics, Inc. went out of business. Spherics, Inc., a pharmaceutical company, engages in developing and manufacturing oral pharmaceutical products for central nervous system conditions, gastrointestinal disorders, and cancer. It develops oral systems based on the application of bioadhesive polymers to oral dosage forms. Thecompany also provides products for neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and multiple sclerosis, as well as for stroke, epilepsy, chronic pain, and migraine. The company was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Mansfield, Massachusetts. | $26.4M | Series C | May 13, 2005 |  |
| Plexxikon | Plexxikon, Inc. engages in the discovery and development of small molecule pharmaceuticals to treat human disease. The company's products include PLX204 for the treatment of diabetes; PLX4032 for the treatment of melanoma and colorectal cancer; and PLX5568 kinase inhibitors for the treatment of pain, polycystic kidney disease, rheumatoidarthritis, metastatic breast cancer, and renal disease. It develops a portfolio of clinical and preclinical stage programs in various therapeutic areas, including metabolic disease, such as obesity indications; oncology, such as osteolytic metastatic disease; and CNS, such as multiple sclerosis. The company’s portfolio of clinical and preclinical stage programs for other therapeutic areas include inflammation, such as systemic lupus erythematosus, inflammatory bowel disease, and osteoporosis; and cardiovascular, including hypertension and atherosclerosis. | $46M | Series B | May 26, 2004 |  |
| Panacos Pharmaceuticals | Panacos Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a development stage biotechnology company, engages in the discovery and development of small-molecule oral drugs designed to treat human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other human viral diseases. The company’s discovery technologies focus on novel targets in the virus life cycle, including virus maturation and virusfusion. Its product pipeline includes second- and third-generation programs in HIV maturation inhibition. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts. | $18.3M | Post-IPO Equity | May 18, 2004 |  |
| Peninsula Pharmaceuticals | Peninsula Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company, engages in the licensing, development, and commercialization anti-infective therapies for the treatment of patients with life-threatening infections for the North American and European markets. Peninsula's lead product candidate, doripenem, is a broad-spectrumantibiotic and a new member of the carbapenem class of beta-lactam antibiotics. Peninsula is currently evaluating doripenem in six Phase III clinical trials. In addition, doripenem received Fast Track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of nosocomial pneumonia, including ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP).Peninsula Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Johnson & Johnson, a global manufacturer of health care products, as well as a provider of related services, for the consumer, pharmaceutical, and medical devices and diagnostics markets.Peninsula Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a privately held biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing antibiotics to treat life-threatening infections. | $57.9M | Series C | Jan 16, 2004 |  |
| Selventa | Selventa, a personalized healthcare company, provides scientific consulting services, licensed software products, and strategic partnerships for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and academic institutions globally. It helps partner companies to develop and optimize pharmaceutical portfolios in various disease areas; analyzes patient data;accelerates the development process; and clarifies decisions on therapeutics and diagnostics. The company engages in short-, mid-, and long-term relationships with pharmaceutical and life science companies to develop new therapeutics and mechanistic biomarkers in the areas of oncology, metabolic disorders, cardiovascular diseases, inflammation, and drug safety. Its solutions also include Hypothesis Investigation Suite, which delivers Project Manager and Project Workbench applications for loading and analyzing large volumes of experiment data using an interactive workbench; Model Investigation Suite offers flash-based applications for viewing, analyzing, and creating explanatory biological models. These analytical software tools are offered to academic, pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners through various hosting options. Selventa was formerly known as Genstruct, Inc. and changed its name to Selventa in November 2010. The company was founded in 2002 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. | $6.5M | Series A | Sep 08, 2003 |  |
| LipoScience | LipoScience is pioneering a new field of personalized diagnostics based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technology. Its first proprietary diagnostic test, the NMR LipoProfile® test, measures the number of low density lipoprotein particles (LDL-P) in a blood sample and provides physicians and their patients with actionable information topersonalize management of risk for heart disease. To date, over 8 million NMR LipoProfile tests have been ordered. | $15M | Series E | Aug 07, 2003 |  |
| Bloodhound Software | Bloodhound Software is the leading claims editing service and analytics provider that offers a fully transparent, customizable, real-time service for all participants in the claims revenue cycle. ConVergence Point, its next-generation hosted claims editing service, can process a claim against 16 million edits across total patient history insubsecond response time. All ConVergence Point edits are open-sourced and based on national standards and can be configured to exactly match a payer’s reimbursement policies. Further, ConVergence Point provides a web portal for providers to see edits and correct claims before submission. | $3M | Series E | Nov 26, 2002 |  |
| Dynogen Pharmaceuticals | Dynogen is a privately held, neuroscience-based pharmaceutical company focused on genitourinary (GU) and gastrointestinal (GI) disorders. The company is utilizing its knowledge of the nexus between neurology and GU/GI disorders, as well as its predictive in vitro and in vivo pharmacology platforms to rapidly build a pipeline of developmentprograms. Today, Dynogen has two ongoing development programs, one for overactive bladder (OAB) and another for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The company will advance its OAB program into Phase IIa trials and enter the clinic with its IBS program later this year. | $13.3M | Series A | Nov 15, 2002 |  |
| Peninsula Pharmaceuticals | Peninsula Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company, engages in the licensing, development, and commercialization anti-infective therapies for the treatment of patients with life-threatening infections for the North American and European markets. Peninsula's lead product candidate, doripenem, is a broad-spectrumantibiotic and a new member of the carbapenem class of beta-lactam antibiotics. Peninsula is currently evaluating doripenem in six Phase III clinical trials. In addition, doripenem received Fast Track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of nosocomial pneumonia, including ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP).Peninsula Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Johnson & Johnson, a global manufacturer of health care products, as well as a provider of related services, for the consumer, pharmaceutical, and medical devices and diagnostics markets.Peninsula Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a privately held biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing antibiotics to treat life-threatening infections. | $22.1M | Series B | Oct 28, 2002 |  |

10 of 12 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Canaan Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/canaan-partners) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Domain Associates](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/domain-associates) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Montreux Equity Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/montreaux-equity-partners) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Advent International](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/advent-international) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [OrbiMed](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/orbimed-advisors) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Oxford Bioscience Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/oxford-bioscience-partners) — VC Fund, 2 deals together

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- [General Catalyst](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/general-catalyst-partners) — VC Fund

## FAQ

### What does A. M. Pappas & Associates invest in?

A. M. Pappas & Associates invests primarily in Health Care, Medical and Biotechnology startups, most often at Series A and Series B stage. Most of the 12 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### When did A. M. Pappas & Associates last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for A. M. Pappas & Associates closed in Aug 2005. Shizune tracks 12 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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