The financing involves Forbion’s Growth Opportunities Fund and includes its founding cornerstone investor, Syncona Investment Management Limited, which provided $42.3 million in investment.
Today, gene therapy company Gyroscope Therapeutics announced their successful Series C financing, which raised a total of $148 million. The financing involves Forbion’s Growth Opportunities Fund and includes its founding cornerstone investor, Syncona Investment Management Limited, which provided $42.3 million in investment.
Other investors are Sofinnova Investments, Tetragon Financial Group Limited, Fosun Pharma and Cambridge Innovation Capital.
According to Chris Hollowood, CIO of Syncona and chairman of Gyroscope, “Syncona founded Gyroscope in 2016 in partnership with leading academics to develop genetically-defined treatments for dry AMD, a leading cause of blindness.”
Hollowood believes that this investment is a reflection of Gyroscope’s great progress as well as their excitement about the potential of the science in making a “meaningful impact in patients’ lives.”
Gyroscope CEO Khurem Farooq said that the company is “excited to welcome a new group of leading life sciences investors on our journey to deliver gene therapy beyond rare disease.”
Gyroscope Therapeutics is a clinical-stage gene therapy company that primarily focuses on eye diseases. Unlike other gene therapy companies, Gyroscope’s primary targets are diseases that cause vision loss and blindness.
Gyroscope said that the Series C financing will be directed towards the development of their GT005, an investigational gene therapy that is currently under evaluation for the treatment of geographic atrophy (GA) secondary to age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
The GT005 is currently under the Fast-Track designation by the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It is being evaluated through a Phase II clinical trial involving two separate and genetically defined patient populations that have GA. The GT005 targets restoring the balance to an overactive complement system by increasing the production of the Complement Factor I (CFI) protein.
In recent studies, complement overreaction is highly correlated with the progression of AMD. The CFI delivered to the overactive complementary system will dampen or decrease the overactivity and even reduce inflammation. This gene therapy is geared towards the preservation of the patient’s eyesight.
“With science grounded in genetics, we believe Gyroscope is well-positioned to develop novel treatments for the millions of people with serious eye diseases who currently have limited or no treatment options,” said Wouter Joustra, General Partner at Forbion, one of the investors of Gyroscope.
