FHL1

Seven years into its existence, Character Biosciences is ready to enter the clinic with a pair of experimental medicines targeting a bustling area of ophthalmology. The New Jersey biotech aims to treat age-related macular degeneration, a key driver of blindness in older adults, based on insights from genetic and imaging data that it collected from more than 6,500 people in an observational study. To get its first candidates into Phase 1 this year, Character announced Tuesday that it raised a $93 million Series B. The biotech previously raised $28 million in funding, including an $18 million Series A in 2022. The financing should take the 30-employee startup through Phase 2 testing for both intravitreal drug candidates, CEO and co-founder Cheng Zhang told Endpoints News . Investors are aMoon, Luma Group, Bausch + Lomb, Jefferson Life Sciences (an affiliate of Jefferson River Capital), Innovation Endeavors, Catalio Capital Management, S32 and KdT Ventures. Character is the second private biotech to announce a funding round on Tuesday after Hillstar Bio revealed its $67 million debut . It’s rare right now to see more than one venture funding round announcement per day, according to a Stifel report on Sunday. The average number of biotech venture rounds per month has slid 10% from two years ago and cratered 40% from the vibrant market of four years ago, according to the Stifel bankers. Character chose its drug targets based on the patient data from the observational study, and the startup believes that wealth of data can also give it a better shot at clinical success because it can hone in on the patients most likely to respond to treatment. Plus, the company worked with more than 150 ophthalmology centers for the observational study, and it plans to use some of those sites for upcoming clinical trials. “It’s been a long journey. It’s taken seven years, in fact, but we didn’t want to make any shortcuts,” Zhang said. “We wanted to build a rigorous company that is rooted in the fundamental science of patient data.” The company is exploring CTX114 as a treatment to slow the progression of geographic atrophy in advanced dry AMD, an increasingly popular category for drugmakers. Astellas and Apellis Pharmaceuticals both received FDA approval for geographic atrophy therapies in 2023 but have since faced regulatory setbacks. Last year, Astellas withdrew its application in Europe, and Apellis’ treatment was rebuffed by the bloc’s regulators, who raised questions about clinical benefit and safety. Like Astellas’ Izervay and Apellis’ Syfovre, Character is also pursuing the complement pathway with CTX114 but is tackling a “different genetically supported” part, according to Zhang. CTX114 is an engineered version of FHL-1, or factor H-like protein 1, a negative regulator of complement activation. Izervay is a complement 5 inhibitor and Syfovre is a C3 inhibitor. The company hopes CTX114 can also offer a less-frequent dosing schedule than Izervay and Syfovre, which are dosed monthy and every 25 to 60 days, respectively. As part of its due diligence on Character, aMoon investors talked with practicing ophthalmologists about the GA landscape, including Izervay and Syfovre. “They said, ‘Look, the risk-benefit for both of these drugs is just not amazing,'” aMoon partner Reut Shema said in an interview. “They said, ‘But we have nothing else. So if you give me something that’s similar efficacy, but just a little bit safer, it’s a multibillion-dollar drug.'” Meanwhile, with CTX203, Character hopes to thwart a patient’s progression to advanced AMD. CTX203 is an apolipoprotein A1 mimetic peptide that aims to stabilize ABCA1 expression. Character is also working with Bausch + Lomb to create new medicines for AMD. The duo began collaborating early last year and announced that work in January. Financial terms have’t been disclosed. “We would love, at a certain time, to move from incidence-driven drug development into a population-specific drug development,” Bausch + Lomb chief medical officer Yehia Hashad said in an interview. Character wants its platform to decipher which patients will be responders from the outset — before even going into clinical studies. “The more we are able to predict patients and treat them prior to getting to the late-stage part of the disease, the better,” Hashad said. The Bausch + Lomb tie-up does not involve Character’s CTX114 or CTX203. “Those could be highly competitive assets,” aMoon’s Shema said, “and because there’s so much interest from pharma companies, we wanted to make sure that this was open territory for different pharmas to bid for those because we think both of them have potential to be multibillion-dollar drugs.” Shema pointed out that Character also has datasets in glaucoma, which could form the basis for additional partnerships.