UgeneX Therapeutics Secures Angel Funding from Fosun Health Capital to Advance Novel Gene Therapy for Ocular Diseases

Pedaily (ID: pedaily2012) reported on August 18 that recently, Suzhou UgeneX Therapeutics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "UgeneX") secured an angel round of funding from the Fosun Health Capital New Drug Innovation Fund. Public information indicates that UgeneX (UgeneX Therapeutics) is a biopharmaceutical technology company established in July 2021, focusing on the development of innovative drugs for the treatment of ophthalmic diseases.

It is reported that UgeneX's Founding Scientist and Chief Scientific OfficerLiu HongDr. Jun is an expert in the field of retinal neuronal regeneration. His research team has discovered that fully differentiated retinal neurons still retain regenerative potential and can be utilized to regenerate other neuronal cell types in the retina.After obtaining his Ph.D. from San Diego State University, Dr. Hongjun Liu successively conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Prior to founding UgeneX, he also successively held positions at the University of Pittsburgh andShanghai Science and TechnologyUniversity appointment.

The novel gene therapy strategy developed by UgeneX holds the potential to restore vision to completely blind patients. Conventional gene therapy approaches can only be effective prior to the loss of diseased retinal neurons in patients, and are limited to slowing disease progression.

According to reports, the novel gene therapy strategy developed by UgeneX utilizes other neural cell types within the patient's retina to regenerate lost neural cells in situ, thereby holding promise for restoring vision in blind patients. Furthermore, this novel gene therapy approach, developed by leveraging the regenerative potential of neural cells, can also be applied to other regions of the nervous system, potentially offering treatments for other neurological disorders.