A Columbus-based startup led by a CEO with Cincinnati ties has received a new wave of investment from local seed stage venture firm CincyTech.
Invirsa, a clinical-stage pharma company developing new treatments for eye conditions, announced the closing of a $7.7 million Series B round Wednesday. The financing, which was completed in April, was led by Avondale-based CincyTech, with participation from Rev1 Ventures in Columbus, JobsOhio’s growth capital fund and JumpStart Ventures, which is headquartered in Cleveland.
The funds will be used to advance Invirsa's lead candidate, INV-102, a topically administered eyedrop formulation to treat ocular conditions associated with DNA damage. That includes a series of Phase 2 studies for a variety of conditions, including acute infectious keratoconjunctivitis (also known as pink eye), dry eye disease and Fuchs dystrophy, or a disease of the cornea.
The company, which got its start in 2014, said the funds will also support its Phase 3 study preparation, part of its path toward U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval.
“The funding is a significant milestone for Invirsa,” Dr. Robert Shalwitz, Invirsa’s CEO, said in a release. “The recent investment led by CincyTech with other Ohio life science investment funds provides strong validation of our vision and approach."
INV-102 is derived from a naturally occurring small molecule that modulates the activity of pathways critical to the DNA damage repair response.
Invirsa said it can be an effective treatment for both viral and bacterial cases of pink eye. In the United States alone, there are approximately 5 million instances annually, and an estimated 80% are viral, for which there is no approved treatment.
“This leads to an over prescription of ineffective antibiotics and billions of dollars in lost productivity,” Invirsa said.
Dry eye also continues to be an important market with a “significant unmet medical need,” Shalwitz said. An estimated 7 to 8 million Americans suffer from dry eye without a suitable therapeutic for the condition.
In terms of local ties, Shalwitz, a pediatric endocrinologist and former Abbott Labs executive, was a founder behind two Cincinnati startups-gone-public: Akebia Therapeutics (Nasdaq: AKBA), which moved from Blue Ash to Boston in 2014 ahead of its $100 million initial public offering; and Akebia spin-off Aerpio Pharmaceuticals, a biopharma company that had been developing a treatment for patients with glaucoma. Aerpio was one of the region’s best-funded startups and had been considered one of the region’s most-promising public companies leading up to its August 2021 merger with Los Angeles-based Aadi Bioscience Inc.
Those stints served a “key attractor” in CincyTech’s original funding of Invirsa in 2017, the firm's Partner John Rice said.
Invirsa raised a $520,000 seed round at the time, and in 2020, followed with an additional $1.8 million, in which CincyTech also participated.
The Series B is CincyTech’s second funding announcement since May, when it disclosed a $1.7 million seed round for Voxel, a Cincinnati-based additive manufacturing startup.
Since 2007, CincyTech funds have invested in almost 90 seed-stage, high-growth companies with 14 exits and an active portfolio of more than 30 startups.
Locally, the firm has backed Amify, Astronomer, Genetesis, Losant, Lisnr, Stack as well as Assurex Health and Standard Bariatrics, the latter two of which have sold for record-setting marks in the region.
