- Aurion Biotech is developing cell therapy treatments to cure blindness.
- The Boston and Seattle startup just raised $120 million to start US trials.
- Insider obtained the 24-slide pitch deck used to raise money from investors like Deerfield.
The cell-therapy startup Aurion Biotech has raised $120 million to pursue its ambition of curing blindness.
The Boston and Seattle startup announced the Series C financing round on April 12, with investors including Deerfield Management, Petrichor Healthcare Capital, and an ophthalmology investment fund managed by KKR and Flying L Partners. The raise is Aurion's first financing as a stand-alone company after it was spun out of the eye-care company CorneaGen last year.
The 30-person startup is the latest example of how cell-therapy research is expanding beyond cancer to a variety of diseases. Cell therapies use healthy or genetically edited cells to treat disease. For instance, cell therapies for leukemia edit a class of immune cells called T cells to boost their cancer-fighting power. There are now hundreds of drug companies working on experimental cell therapies for multiple types of illnesses — the California biotech Sangamo Therapeutics, for instance, recently dosed the first patients with a new type of cell therapy that could treat autoimmune diseases.
Aurion is the one of the first biotechs to try to bring cell therapy into ophthalmology, according to the company. It's focused on a group of diseases called corneal endothelial dystrophies, where damaged cells gather in the thin outer layer of the eye and can cause progressive vision loss. Corneal endothelial dystrophies affect 16 million people in the US, Europe, and Japan, according to Aurion.
A 2018 article in The New England Journal of Medicine of patients with corneal endothelial dystrophies said Aurion's treatment could reverse the disease and restore vision.
"In endothelial disease, we have really strong reason to believe it's curative," Aurion CEO Greg Kunst told Insider. "As we get into other disorders of the eye, there's reason to believe that these treatments could not only halt progression but also be curative. But that's more to explore."
Here is the 24-slide presentation Aurion Biotech used to raise $120 million to treat blindness:
Aurion Biotech was formed in 2021 as a US company using Japanese research to try and cure some forms of blindness.
The biotech just raised $120 million in a Series C round led by Deerfield Management.
Aurion is trying to cure a type of blindness that comes from damage to the cornea — the part of the eye that covers the front of the eyeball and filters light.
The company plans to file for approval in Japan in the second half of 2022, as well as apply to start a US clinical trial before the end of the year.
Shigeru Kinoshita at the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine in Japan started developing this cell-therapy approach more than a decade ago.
The cornea is made up of several layers of cells and membranes. Aurion's first treatment is focused on repairing damaged endothelial cells, which can cause blindness.
Damaged endothelial cells can cause fluid to fill the cornea, which can blur vision and lead to vision loss.
Aurion's cell therapy replaces damaged cells with healthy ones grown in a lab. So far, trial results have shown treatment can restore vision loss.
Current treatments for corneal endothelial dystrophies require healthy donor corneas and a complex, microscopic surgery.
Aurion outlines three major problems with these surgeries: a limited donor supply, a complex and invasive process, and unfavorable economics.
Aurion is hoping to scale its process to the point where it can produce more than 100 cell-therapy treatments from a single eye donor.
Kunst told Insider that by the time of approval, Aurion could be making 1,000 or even 10,000 treatments from a single donor.
Aurion's treatment follows a three-step process: Damaged cells are removed, the cell therapy is injected into the eye, and patients recover by lying down for three hours.
Thanks to its academic research partners in Kyoto, Aurion already has clinical results for its therapies despite being only a year old.
The first clinical results from Japan were published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2018. Follow-up data published in 2020 showed 10 of the 11 treated patients had normal vision five years after treatment.
Aurion has also been running clinical trial for the same disease in El Salvador.
This year, Aurion plans to start a US clinical trial using the money from its recent funding round.
In the second half of 2022, Aurion plans to file for regulatory approval in Japan.
The manufacturing process — turning one donated cornea into 100-plus treatments — is a critical element of Aurion's treatment.
Aurion uses a proprietary technique to replicate and manufacture endothelial cells in the lab.
Aurion has two major offices, in Seattle and Boston, along with a few employees in Japan.
Kinoshita, the scientist who invented Aurion's lead cell therapy, joined the company's medical-advisory board in July.
Aurion hopes this cell therapy strategy can help it tackle other major eye disorders, like glaucoma and macular degeneration.
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