Tenpoint raises $70m for vision loss therapies

UK-headquartered start-up Tenpoint Therapeutics has reeled in a commendable $70 million in first-round financing that will be used to develop its cell-based therapies for sight-robbing diseases.

The regenerative medicine specialist has been set up to advance the research of scientific founders from Moorfields Eye Hospital, University College London’s Institute of Ophthalmology, Institut de la Vision in France, and the University of Washington in the US.

The cash injection will be used to develop its platform, based on the use of engineered cells that will be used to replace multiple cell types lost in inherited and age-related eye conditions.

It is working on ex vivo therapies, which will use pluripotent stem cells to create ocular cells that will be transplanted into the eye, as well as in vivo therapies that will attempt to regenerate lost cells by reprogramming other structural cells in the eye.

Early research by its founders has focused on diseases that involve the destruction of retinal cells, including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), as well as the restoration of vision using transplanted photoreceptor cells.

The company is led by chief executive Eddy Anglade, a veteran of the ophthalmology sector, who was a co-founder of Lux Biosciences and has held senior positions at a long list of biopharma companies, including Ocata Therapeutics, Astellas, and most recently Johnson & Johnson.

The company’s board of directors also includes David Guyer – currently CEO of EyeBio and formerly chair of IVERIC Bio and CEO of Eyetech Pharma. At Eyetech he oversaw the development of wet AMD drug Macugen (pegaptanib sodium), which was an important therapy for many years until it was superseded by newer drugs like Novartis’ Lucentis (ranibizumab), which offered improved efficacy.

“Cell-based therapeutics represent an ideal modality for degenerative ocular diseases, since most vision loss results from damaged or missing tissue,” said Anglade, who has just replaced founding CEO Vanessa King, who led the financing and will stay on as a strategic advisor to the biotech.

“In recent years, a number of new technological advancements have converged to make this modality both clinically viable and scalable,” he added. The company will enter a category with a number of existing players, including Novartis/Intellia, Genentech/Lineage Cell Therapeutics, and Aurion Biotech, amongst others.

The Series A has been financed by seed investors F-Prime Capital, Sofinnova Partners, Qiming Venture Partners USA, Eight Roads, and the UCL Technology Fund, as well as new backer British Patient Capital, a subsidiary of the British Business Bank.

Tenpoint has also just revealed a deal to acquire rights to ex vivo applications of GIRK (G protein-coupled inwardly-rectifying potassium channel) technology developed by French biotech SparingVision, which has become a minority shareholder in the UK company.