Character raises $93m for eye drugs, plus other financings
Character Bio chief executive and co-founder Cheng Zhang.
Character Biosciences has raised $93m in an oversubscribed Series B round to speed the clinical development of a pipeline of drugs for progressive vision disorders, starting with age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
The New Jersey, US-based biotech is focusing its efforts on two lead candidates – codenamed CTX203 and CTX114 – which it says target key drivers of retinal cell death and vision loss in AMD, a sight-robbing disease that affects millions of people worldwide.
CTX114 is a complement inhibitor designed to slow the progression of geographic atrophy in advanced dry AMD, while Character CTX203 is a lipid regulator designed to prevent progression to advanced AMD. The two candidates are still in early-stage development and are due to start clinical testing within the next year, with the new financing expected to cover phase 1 and 2 trials.
Chief executive and co-founder Cheng Zhang said: "By identifying the genetic modifiers of their disease progression, we can develop therapeutics to more precisely target the root causes of disease and improve clinical translation." The company is also working on discovery-stage projects in AMD, as well as progressive open-angle glaucoma.
New investors Luma Group and aMoon headed the new round, with participation from Bausch + Lomb and Jefferson Life Sciences, as well as existing backers Catalio Capital Management, KdT Ventures, Innovation Endeavors, and S32.
Tempero, EpiCrispr Hillstar, and Ampersand also raise funds
Also this week, Tempero Bio – a developer of medicines for substance use disorders (SUDs) – gathered $70 million in second-round financing provided by 8VC, Aditum Bio, Khosla Ventures, and other unnamed investors.
The cash will be used to support two phase 2 trials of TMP-301, a metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5) negative allosteric modulator (NAM), in people battling alcohol and cocaine use disorders. Alterations in glutamate signalling are associated with a range of neurological disorders, including addiction, according to the Oakland, California biotech. The alcohol study recently started, while the cocaine study is due to get going in the next 12 months.
South San Francisco biotech Epicrispr Biotechnologies, which as its name suggests focuses on drugs that control gene expression, harvested $68 million in the first close of a Series B financing that will go towards clinical trials of EPI-321, described as a disease-modifying therapy for genetic neuromuscular disorder facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD).
A first-in-human trial of EPI-321, a one-shot genetic therapy designed to silence aberrant expression of DUX4 in FSHD patients – is expected to start later this year in New Zealand. The financing was led by Ally Bridge Group, with participation from SOLVE FSHD, a venture philanthropy organisation.
Hillstar Bio, a Boston-based start-up, raised $67 million in Series A funding for a platform that promises to treat autoimmune diseases by selectively depleting pathogenic cells while preserving healthy ones.
The round was led by a syndicate of experienced investors and shareholders from the US, Europe, and Asia, including Droia Ventures, Frazier Life Sciences, Novo Holdings, LifeArc Ventures, and Hummingbird Bioscience. It will be used to advance Hillstar Bio's lead programme – which targets TRBV9-positive T-cells and is being developed initially for axial spondyloarthritis (AxSpA) – into clinical trials in 2026.
Finally, Flagship Pioneering-incubated biotech Ampersand Biomedicines added $65 million to its coffers from a second round financing – which was led by Flagship and supported by Eli Lilly and others – that will allow it to move two lead immuno-inflammation and immuno-oncology programmes into clinical trial-enabling studies this year.
Boston-based Ampersand, which was formed to develop a computationally-powered biologic medicines discovery platform, also announced a second discovery partnership with Pioneering Medicines, Flagship's in-house drug discovery and development unit, focused on obesity. It already has an alliance in place with Pioneering and Pfizer on metabolic disorders.
