Bringing together experts in the field of retinal diseases, the new Paris-based company Fovea Pharmaceuticals SA closed a 20.5 million (US$25 million) Series A financing round.

Founded in May, the company plans to use the proceeds to develop a pipeline of products through internal research and by switching the focus of current molecules from other indications to ophthalmology applications.

The funds should last the 12-person company about two years or more and will provide "the necessary means" for Fovea "to achieve its short-term objectives in terms of management, finance and science," said its chairman and CEO Bernard Gilly. Fovea expects to build its work force up to about 20 people by the end of 2006.

Paris-based Sofinnova Partners, which provided the initial seed money for Fovea, led the Series A round that included investments from Abingworth Management and The Wellcome Trust, both of London, as well as GIMV of Antwerp, Belgium, and Paris-based Credit Agricole Private Equity.

Some of the retinal diseases for which Fovea hopes to develop treatments are age-related macular degeneration (AMD), retinitis pigmentosa, diabetic retinopathy or macular edema. The diseases affect the back of the eye in more than 50 million people in North America and Europe, often leading to death and about half of all cases of legal blindness. With aging populations, incidences of these diseases are growing, and yet, there are few and sometimes no treatments available.

The market for eye disease therapeutics is expected to quadruple from $10 billion in 2004 to $40 billion by 2012, the company said, adding that the indications in which it will focus account for about 55 percent of that total.

Fovea's goal is to bring together worldwide experts to find breakthrough treatments. Its scientific strategy has helped it to identify factors that control the maintenance of central vision. Once determining key events that lead to a loss of function, the company then designs and validates a relevant model to screen drug candidates.

So far, Fovea's pipeline potentially includes six products: two discovered in-house, one already in-licensed and three currently under in-licensing negotiations. The two internally discovered compounds, FPAMD01 and FPGL02, are at the drug discovery stage of research, while the in-licensed drug, Diltiazem, is in preclinical testing. Diltiazem was originally developed for cardiovascular applications by Synthélabo before it became part of Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis.

The Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale (INSERM) in Paris bought the patent for Diltiazem in 2001 and has granted exclusive rights in the area of ophthalmology to Fovea, which is developing an intraocular formulation of the drug to treat the orphan indication retinitis pigmentosa.

In 2007, Diltiazem and one product that Fovea is in the process of in-licensing should enter clinical development, while FPAMD01 and FPGL02 move into preclinical testing.

The three drugs that Fovea may in-license would treat retinitis pigmentosa and dry AMD, wet AMD and macular edema. Two of the products should move into Phase I/II trials by the end of 2006.

Most of Fovea's technology is derived from INSERM, and is based on the use of primary retinal cells that allow the identification of target proteins. The technology has been validated with the identification of a new protein, the rod-derived cone viability factor.

Gilly said that there are shortcomings to the systemic delivery of drugs for eye diseases, adding that Fovea intends to deliver active ingredients directly into the eye using external gels, polymers/microspheres, intraocular coated inserts and intravitreal microinjections.

As the former president and CEO of Strasbourg, France-based Transgene SA and a partner at Sofinnova, Gilly co-founded Fovea with Jose-Alain Sahel, Pierre Belichard, Serge Picaud and Thierry Leveillard. Sahel has taken on the role of Fovea's chief scientific adviser, while Belichard is the chief operating officer.

Sahel, an eye specialist, has conducted pioneering research to understand the pathological mechanisms involved in retinal cell degeneration. He currently is chairman of an ophthalmology department at the National Eye Hospital of XV-XX, of Paris, and at the Rothschild Ophthalmology Foundation, and a director of INSERM Unit 592, where Picard and Leveillard serve as group leaders.

The Series A financing will help in furthering eye disease research and allow Fovea to develop "innovative molecules to treat these millions of people affected with retinal degenerative disorders," Sahel said.

Other companies working in the retinal disease space include New York-based Eyetech Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Vancouver, British Columbia-based QLT Inc., which have Macugen and Visudyne on the market for wet AMD. Visudyne, which was the first to receive FDA approval in April of 2000, is expected to pull in more than $500 million in sales this year.

Another ophthalmology product that could reach the market soon is South San Francisco-based Genentech Inc.'s Lucentis, which demonstrated that 95 percent of treated patients with minimally classic or occult wet AMD in a Phase III trial maintained or improved their vision at one year, compared with about 62 percent of those in the control arm. The company expects to file a biologics license application in December.