LENZ Therapeutics Secures $53.5M Funding and Merges with Graphite Bio to Advance Phase 3 Development of Presbyopia Eye Drops LNZ100 and LNZ101

▎Edited by the WuXi AppTec content team

LENZ Therapeutics and Graphite Bio Announce Merger Agreement; Combined Company to Focus on LNZ100 and LNZ101 Eye Drops for PresbyopiaLENZ Therapeutics Secures $53.5 Million in Financing. The funds will be used to advance the ongoing Phase 3 clinical trials for these two eye drop products.

LNZ100 (Aceclidine) and LNZ101 formulation (Aceclidine + Brimonidine) developed by LENZ Therapeutics both use Aceclidine as the main ingredient.Cyclidine is a small molecule acetylcholine receptor agonist that can cause pupil constriction, producing a pinhole effect, thereby improving near vision.However, compared with other cholinergic receptor agonists, it has more specificity in its action on the iris muscles that control pupil size, thereby reducing pupil constriction while minimizing the contraction of the ciliary muscle, decreasing changes in the refractive power of the lens, and thus avoiding impacts on the patient’s distance vision.

▲LNZ100 and LNZ101 Achieve Primary Endpoint of the Trial (Image Source: LENZ Therapeutics Official Website)

The results of the Phase 2 clinical trial that have been published show:

Patients in both the LNZ100 and LNZ101 groups achieved the primary endpoint, demonstrating an improvement of more than 3 lines (15 letters) on the near vision chart without losing 1 line (5 letters) of distance vision. In the LNZ100 group,71%Patients in the LNZ101 group56%Patients achieved symptom relief 1 hour after using the eyedrops, compared to only [value] in the solvent control group.6%（p

Notably, 37% of patients in the LNZ100 group (p

The efficacy of the two formulations is rapid.Within 30 minutes of using the eyedrops, 73% of patients in the LNZ100 group and 62% of patients in the LNZ101 group showed an improvement in reading of more than 3 lines, compared to only 8% in the solvent control group.。

LENZ Therapeutics is currently conducting three Phase 3 randomized, double-blind clinical trials evaluating LNZ100 and LNZ101, with active and placebo controls. To date, all clinical trial sites have been activated. The six-week efficacy trial CLARITY-1 has completed patient enrollment, the enrollment rate for another six-week efficacy trial CLARITY-2 has exceeded 95%, and the six-month safety trial CLARITY-3 has also completed enrollment of all patients.