RhyGaze secures Series A financing of $86 million to further novel gene therapy

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RhyGaze, a biotechnology company based in Basel, Switzerland, and Philadelphia, PA, secured Series A financing of $86 million. Financing was led by Google Ventures, Arch Venture Partners, F-Prime Capital, and founding investors BioGeneration Ventures and Novartis Venture Fund.

The funding will aid the further development of RhyGaze’s lead clinical candidate, a novel gene therapy for optogenetic vision restoration in diseases causing blindness. It will also support activities like formal pharmacology and toxicology testing; a non-interventional, observational study to assess potential clinical endpoints in patient groups eligible for the therapy; and a first-in-human clinical trial to test the safety, tolerability, and potential efficacy of the lead candidate.

“This program exemplifies a key goal of IOB: combining our deep understanding of retinal biology and vision with breakthrough technologies to develop novel therapies for vision loss,” Botond Roska, scientific co-founder of RhyGaze, said.

Other researchers testing the therapy are excited to see the program move forward. Bence Gyorgy, a group leader at the IOB and RhyGaze scientific co-founder, said, “We are excited to see this program moving forward because it uniquely presents the opportunity to restore high-resolution vision in blind patients.”

Katherine High, CEO of RhyGaze, sees the partnership with IOB as a valuable opportunity to reach the goals of the therapy. She said, “I look forward to partnering with colleagues at IOB to bring this novel gene therapy to patients, and I am excited about the team we are assembling to pursue this important goal. RhyGaze will determine over the next few years whether the compelling data generated at IOB can translate to clinical outcomes. If that is true, this innovation will have a worldwide impact in improved therapeutics for blindness.”

Reference:

1. Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel Spinout RhyGaze Closes USD 86 Million Series A Round to Further Novel Gene Therapy for Vision Restoration. Businesswire. Accessed January 13, 2025. Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel Spinout RhyGaze Closes USD 86 Million Series A Round to Further Novel Gene Therapy for Vision Restoration | Business Wire