Oyster Point Pharma said yesterday that it raised $93 million in a Series B round to support the clinical development of its intranasal dry eye disease therapies.
The Princeton, N.J.-based company’s lead product candidates for dry eye disease are designed to stimulate the trigeminal parasympathetic pathway to trigger natural tear film production. The drugs, OC-01 and OC-02, are delivered using an ocular surface-sparing nasal spray.
In Phase IIb trials, patients treated with OC-01 and OC-02 experienced significant improvements in the symptoms of dry eye disease and the products were well-tolerated with no significant ocular adverse events, according to Oyster Point.
The $93 million Series B round was co-led by Invus Opportunities and Flying L Partners with Falcon Vision. Existing investors, such as New Enterprise Associates and Versant Ventures, also joined the round.
“Our team sees immense promise in this investment given Oyster Point’s encouraging clinical evidence, the potential market size, and the leadership team’s extensive experience developing and commercializing ophthalmology therapies,” Benjamin Tsai of Invus Opportunities said in prepared remarks. “We believe Oyster Point’s therapies will redefine the standard of care for dry eye disease, a condition that affects millions of people.”
“We are grateful to our investors for their partnership and look forward to initiating a Phase 3 clinical development program for dry eye disease,” Oyster Point president & CEO Jeffrey Nau added. “Our novel approach to empower patients with Dry Eye Disease to stimulate their own natural tears has tremendous potential. This financing will bring us a step closer to offering much needed relief to patients in an area that has limited treatment options.”
