NEA-backed Night­star Ther­a­peu­tics sets sights on an $86M IPO to fund PhI­II gene ther­a­py study

Two months af­ter bank­ing a $45 mil­lion crossover round from some top biotech in­vestors, Ox­ford gene ther­a­py spin­out Night­star Ther­a­peu­tics has pen­ciled in an $86 mil­lion IPO to push its lead drug through Phase III test­ing.

Night­star is a reti­nal gene ther­a­py com­pa­ny— of­fi­cial­ly set up as a new sub­sidiary to Night­StaRx — ad­vanc­ing new ther­a­pies aimed at dis­eases that cause blind­ing. First up is NSR-REP1, de­signed to treat choroi­deremia by cor­rect­ing mu­ta­tions in the CHM gene. Ac­cord­ing to the F-1, the biotech has da­ta on 32 pa­tients show­ing their gene ther­a­py ei­ther main­tained or im­proved vi­su­al acu­ity in 90% of the pa­tients in the study. The Phase III pro­gram, set to start in ear­ly 2018, will re­cruit 140 pa­tients and di­vide it in­to high- and low- and no-dose groups, while run­ning a par­al­lel nat­ur­al his­to­ry study to de­tail ex­pect­ed rates of de­cline.

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