BUSINESS WIRE
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“New paradigm” of drug development, combining efforts of the National Institutes of Health and The Scripps Research Institute with leading translational biotech and pharmaceutical companies EyeCyte and Pfizer
- Collaboration seeks to develop new cell-based treatments for neovascular and degenerative retinal disease
SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--EyeCyte, Inc., an early stage stem/progenitor cell-based ophthalmology
research and development company based in La Jolla, California, today
announced that it has secured its Series A funding through an agreement
with Pfizer. The financing will fund the company into 2010 and will be
primarily used to drive product development of the company’s
initial clinical target, diabetic retinopathy.
Under the terms of the deal, Pfizer has invested $3 million in Series A
Preferred shares of EyeCyte. Pfizer will be the sole pharmaceutical
partner and will have an Advisory and Board role, helping to facilitate
technology applications that will have meaningful pharmaceutical and
patient impact. Pfizer will also have right of first refusal for a
buy-out of EyeCyte or its technologies.
“EyeCyte is delighted to have attracted Pfizer
as an investment partner”, said Mohammad A.
El-Kalay, Ph.D., president and Chief Executive Officer, EyeCyte. “We
are very pleased with the terms of our collaboration and believe that
Pfizer shares our goal of building a premier ophthalmology research and
development organization with an emphasis on stem/progenitor cell based
therapies.”
Building on research into the causes of, and potential treatments for,
retinal disease by Professor Martin Friedlander, M.D., Ph.D. and his
laboratory at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, EyeCyte will
use the properties of blood and bone marrow-derived progenitor cells of
patients to pursue the development of treatments for acquired and
inherited retinal diseases including diabetic retinopathy, retinopathy
of prematurity, retinal vascular occlusive disease, age-related macular
degeneration (AMD) and retinitis pigmentosa.
Currently, available treatments benefit sub-populations of patients with
these diseases, but there remains a great unmet medical need. Published
and unpublished preclinical data from the Friedlander laboratory
demonstrates that specific populations of cells may be therapeutically
useful for the treatment of retinal vascular and degenerative diseases.
These progenitor cells target sites of retinal ischemia and
neovascularization where they stabilize the vasculature in animal models.
“We are excited about the potential that this
collaboration offers to the millions of patients suffering from vascular
or degenerative eye diseases, such as macular degeneration,”
said Corey Goodman, Ph.D., president, Pfizer Biotherapeutics and
Bioinnovation Center. “Not only does this
collaboration with EyeCyte complement our internal research efforts, it
is a great example of the investment Pfizer is making in academic and
biotech partnerships to accelerate research in emerging areas of science
where there is still great medical need. With the financial support and
complementary ophthalmology expertise from Pfizer, Dr. Friedlander and
his team at EyeCyte will now be able to further advance this highly
promising research in an environment that allows them to keep their
autonomy, culture and entrepreneurial spirit. This approach truly is a
win-win proposition for Pfizer, for EyeCyte and for human health, and we
are excited to be at the forefront of incubating highly promising
research, like this, through our partnership model."
The preclinical research at Friedlander’s
laboratory that led to these novel – and
potentially, therapeutically useful –
discoveries has been funded through grants from the National Eye
Institute (NEI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In June
2007, his lab was awarded a five-year grant from the NEI to support the
development of the use of adult stem cells as a therapy for treating the
most common types of vision loss. The particular funding mechanism used
to support this work, an “R24,”
is an NEI/NIH program specifically designed to facilitate collaborative
research for the therapy of visual disorders.
“Something interesting and potentially very
important is happening here – we may be
seeing discoveries of investigator-initiated research, funded by NIH,
pushed to the clinic more rapidly by the investigators through creative
collaborations among non-profits, biotech, and big pharma,”
said Paul A. Sieving, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Eye
Institute. "Our goal in the next several years is to develop this new
approach to treating retinal diseases to the point it can be tested in
the clinic,” said Dr. Friedlander. “While
the NIH grant goes a long way towards enabling us to translate the
pre-clinical work into clinical application, the recent investment by
Pfizer in EyeCyte provides us the means, in part, to meet the
extraordinary expenses associated with developing a clinical product
that we can take to the FDA for evaluation and, ultimately, to patients."
"Working with EyeCyte and Pfizer," says Friedlander, “I
have every confidence that we will bring this potential therapy to the
point of being tested in the clinic. This is an extraordinary
opportunity to take highly novel laboratory concepts, test them
experimentally, and translate them into therapies for the treatment of
blinding eye diseases. The combination of NIH-funded pre-clinical
research, the tremendous environment at a non-profit like The Scripps
Research Institute and the strengths of translational biotech and
pharmaceutical organizations like EyeCyte and Pfizer are the new
paradigm that will enable us to more rapidly translate science from the
bench to therapeutics for the bedside.”
About Pfizer and the Pfizer
Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center
Pfizer Inc is the world's largest research-based biomedical and
pharmaceutical company, employing approximately 85,000 colleagues in
more than 90 countries. In 2007, Pfizer invested $8.1 billion in
research and development. The Pfizer Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation
Center is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and combines cutting-edge
biology, new platform technologies, and advanced research tools to
discover and develop new medicines. Located in one of the hubs of
biotechnology, the BBC has the entrepreneurial spirit of biotech and
collaborates broadly with the academic, biotech, and venture communities
to focus on discovering and developing new medicines. In April 2008,
Pfizer announced the formation of Pfizer Regenerative Medicine, a new
research unit focused on stem cells and modulators of regenerative
processes. This unit allows Pfizer to conduct research into therapies
for organ repair, degenerative diseases, disability prevention and
elements of the aging process to deliver the portfolio of the future.
About EyeCyte, Inc.
EyeCyte, Inc., an early stage stem/progenitor cell-based
ophthalmology research and development company based in La Jolla,
California. The company will exploit a decade of research into
the causes of, and potential treatments for, retinal disease by
Professor Martin Friedlander, M.D., Ph.D. and his laboratory at The
Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. EyeCyte will
use the properties of the patients’ own
(autologous) peripheral and cord blood and bone marrow derived
stem/progenitor cells to treat acquired and inherited retinal diseases
that include diabetic retinopathy, retinopathy of prematurity, retinal
vascular occlusive disease (e.g., central retinal vein occlusion),
age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and retinitis pigmentosa. EyeCyte
will seek to translate these pre-clinical observations into the clinic
by engineering a cGMP process to commercialize cell-based therapies for
ophthalmic disease. Dr. El-Kalay and his team collectively have over 50
years in cell based biotechnology companies in both management and
product development before joining EyeCyte. All of the preclinical
research in the Friedlander laboratory that has led to these novel and
potentially therapeutically useful discoveries has been funded through
grants from the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of
Health. John Callahan of McDermott, Will and Emery in Chicago provided
legal services to EyeCyte supporting this arrangement.
PFIZER DISCLOSURE NOTICE: The information contained in this release
is as of June 23, 2008. Pfizer assumes no obligation to update
forward-looking statements contained in this release as the result of
new information or future events or developments.
This release contains forward-looking information about a
collaboration between Pfizer and EyeCyte, Inc. with respect to the
development of new treatments for neovascular and degenerative retinal
disease that involves substantial risks and uncertainties. Such risks
and uncertainties include, among other things, the uncertainties
inherent in research and development; decisions by regulatory
authorities regarding whether and when to approve any drug applications
that may be filed for any such treatments as well as their decisions
regarding labeling and other matters that could affect the availability
or commercial potential of such treatments; and competitive
developments. A further description of risks and uncertainties can be
found in Pfizer’s Annual Report on Form 10-K
for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2007 and in its reports on Form
10-Q and Form 8-K.