Perceptive Xontogeny Venture
Funds Leads Financing to Support Development of
Accommodating Intraocular Lens (A-IOL) Through First-in-Human
Trials, Paving the Way to Transform Cataract Surgery's Standard of
Care
BOSTON, April 29,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Adaptilens, Inc., a pre-clinical
company dedicated to transforming the standard of care for cataract
surgery, today announced the closing of a Series A financing round
of $17.5 million led by Perceptive
Xontogeny Venture Funds (PXV Funds), with additional investments
from Pillar VC, 380 Cap, and Accanto Partners. The capital will
drive the development of the company's Accommodating Intraocular
Lens (A-IOL), the first and only biomimetic intraocular lens,
through first-in-human trials.
The Series A follows an earlier seed round of $1.6 million led by Pillar VC with participation
from Accanto Partners and additional awards from the Harvard President's Innovation Challenge and the
Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Initiative for Women
Entrepreneurs.
Adaptilens's mission is to revolutionize cataract surgery by
restoring vision to its youthful state. The National Eye Institute
expects the number of Americans with cataracts to double by 2050,
from 24 million to approximately 50 million. Annually, more than 4
million Americans undergo cataract surgery. The current standard of
care for cataract surgery entails replacement of the cataractous
lens with a flat, monofocal lens that allows clear vision at either
near or far distance, but not both. The Adaptilens A-IOL is a
novel, flexible, artificial lens that imitates the human lens by
responding to the eye's natural signal to focus. Restoring clear
near, intermediate, and distance vision -- unaided by eyeglasses or
contact lenses -- will provide people with a significant quality of
life-enhancing improvement to the current standard of care.
"The young, healthy, human eye is perfectly designed, and its
soft, flexible lens is what allows the eye to change power for a
full range of vision. Our goal is to provide the growing number of
people who need cataract surgery with a biomimetic option that
restores youthful vision. This funding is meaningful as it enables
our exceptional team to accelerate the development of our
best-in-class A-IOL," commented Liane
Clamen, MD, Adaptilens Founder and Chief Executive Officer.
"We're grateful to PXV Funds and our entire investor base for
recognizing the transformative potential of Adaptilens."
"We're compelled by Adaptilens's innovative and elegant
technology, which lies in their novel A-IOL design and proprietary
polymer materials," said Gianna
Hoffman-Luca, PhD, Senior Principal, Venture at
Perceptive Advisors and Partner at Xontogeny. "Equally
inspiring is the Adaptilens team of experts' unwavering dedication
to developing the best-in-class A-IOL, a game-changing solution for
the burgeoning millions of people needing cataract surgery. We're
excited for Adaptilens to join our portfolio of companies and to
support them in their next phase of growth from pre-clinical to
clinical."
ABOUT ADAPTILENS
Adaptilens, Inc. is a privately held,
pre-clinical biotech company focused on transforming the standard
of care for cataract surgery. A soft and flexible Accommodating
Intraocular Lens (A-IOL), the Adaptilens A-IOL is the first and
only biomimetic intraocular lens that responds to the eye's natural
signal to focus, thus eliminating the need for eyeglasses or
contact lenses. Our mission is to revolutionize cataract surgery by
restoring vision to its youthful state. Adaptilens is based
in Boston, Massachusetts. For more
information, go to https://adaptilens.com.
ABOUT PERCEPTIVE XONTOGENY VENTURE FUNDS
The
Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Funds ("PXV Funds") are Perceptive
Advisors' investment vehicles focused on early-stage, private
venture investments in life sciences companies. Primary investments
for PXV Funds include companies that are seeking a lead investor
for private financings, which include both companies that are
seeded and incubated at Xontogeny, and companies that are seeded
and incubated by other organizations, accelerators and seed
investors. The PXV Funds are also open to participating in
syndicated private financings as a co-lead or passive investor with
other venture capital firms. For more information, visit
www.perceptivelife.com.
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SOURCE Adaptilens, Inc