MEDICAL

Oncotech, an Irvine company that develops chemotherapy programs for cancer patients, completed a second round of venture-capital funding last week that will give it $2.5 million to spend on marketing and further clinical trials.

Founded by two doctors in November, 1985, Oncotech received start-up grants amounting to about $150,000 from Memorial Hospital in Long Beach and the National Cancer Institute.

Then in its first round of venture financing a year ago, the company obtained $1 million, including $900,000 from Southern California Ventures, a firm that invests in start-up companies. Southern California Ventures, which is based in Los Angeles and also maintains an office in Irvine, has since provided Oncotech another $800,000.

The latest round of funding was made by U.S. Venture Partners in Menlo Park, MedVenture Associates in San Francisco, GC&H; Investments in Palo Alto and several private individuals, according to Dr. Robert Nagourney, a company founder and vice president of clinical services.

Nagourney, a specialist in hematology, oncology and internal medicine, said Oncotech helps physicians pick the most effective drugs for specific tumors by testing the drugs on tumor tissue taken from a patient before that patient receives treatment.

Nagourney said there is “a great deal of biological individuality” in how tumors react to about 41 therapeutic agents used in cancer therapy.

His goal, he said, is “to select the treatment that is most effective and diminish unnecessary toxic therapies.”