HONG KONG – With a focus on developing treatments for ocular fibrosis and inflammation, a new Australian biopharmaceutical company Occurx Pty Ltd. launched yesterday with A$6.5 million (US$5.2 million) in funds from a consortium that includes the Medical Research Commercialization Fund (MRCF), Brandon Capital Partners and Uniseed.

As the manager of MRCF, Brandon Capital closed last month Australia's biggest life science fund, MRCF3, at A$200 million (US$155 million).

"The first tranche of the funds will be used to get the [candidates] to the end of the phase I clinical trial," Occurx's CEO Darren Kelly told BioWorld Today. "And after that we'll probably raise another A$20 to A$30 million to go into a phase II clinical trials."

Occurx will focus on the development of innovative therapeutic strategies for the treatment of ophthalmic disorders associated with retinal fibrosis and inflammation. Its pipeline includes a couple of small-molecule inhibitors to treat diabetic retinopathy (DR) and prevent the scarring on the retina that often causes blindness.

DR is a very common complication of diabetes and leading cause of vision loss and blindness. It affects almost all adult patients with type 1 diabetes and more than 60 percent of those with type 2 diabetes.

Occurx is also working on treatments of age-related ocular degeneration, which is also a leading cause of blindness.

The company has successfully established preclinical proof of concept of the anti-fibrotic compounds in ocular inflammation and fibrosis. The ultimate endpoint is a reduction in the loss of vision and improvement in the ability to see.

"We've got two compounds in the preclinical development at the moment," said Kelly. "We'll be taking them to clinical studies later next year."

Targeting at the global fibrotic disease market, Kelly said the market has a great potential and could be worth $1 billion to $2 billion per year.

Kelly is also the founder of Fibrotech Therapeutics Pty Ltd., which was acquired by Shire Plc in May 2014. (See BioWorld Today, May 13, 2014.)

"It's an exiting time for biotech in Australia; we want to take this program further than we did with Fibrotech," said Kelly. "Learning a lot of the managing experience of Fibrotech, it's really about taking more risks in the situation, going further in terms of clinical development and improve the visibility of the Australian biotech sector throughout the world."

In an interview with BioWorld Today on the successful closing of the MRCF3, the managing director of Brandon Capital, Chris Nave, expressed his concern that Australia lacks transitional funds. (See BioWorld Today, April 22, 2015.)

"There's a massive lack of funding for that transitional research of getting research [result] out of laboratories and commercializing it," said Kelly. "This is one of the starting points of trying to improve that gap in the sector and getting more companies to commercialize in early stage."

Kelly said the commercialization of Occurx would probably start at the end of phase II and then partner with a pharmaceutical company.

"We are extremely excited by the company's intellectual property and preliminary data and have every confidence that Dr. Kelly and his team have what it takes to make Occurx a huge success," said Nave. "It is testament to his previous efforts and the success of the MRCF model that one of our earliest investments in Dr. Kelly's first company, Fibrotech, resulted in one of Australia's most eye-catching life science acquisition transactions."

Uniseed is a A$20 million joint venture established in 2000 between the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland. Later in 2006, it was joined by a third leading university, the University of New South Wales and a private institutional investor, the Westscheme superannuation fund with another $40 million venture fund.

"The launch of Occurx adds to the exciting portfolio of companies spun out of Uniseed's partner universities, and highlights the vision of the Universities of Melbourne, Queensland and New South Wales in setting up the Uniseed fund," said Peter Devine, CEO of Uniseed.