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Recently,Rehydration Therapeutics, a company focused on the development of innovative oligonucleotide drugs for ophthalmology, announced the completion of its tens-of-millions-of-yuan Angel+ round financing.This round of financing was jointly led by Bencao Capital and Shanghai Future Industry Fund, with participation from Jiaoda Hanyuan Assets, Fudan Sci-Tech Innovation, GSR United Runpu Yuanfeng, Yuanxi Haihe, and the Tsinghua Alumni Seed Fund.Previously, the company completed its angel round of financing led by Fudan University’s Biomedical Translation Fund (hereinafter referred to as the “Sanfu Fund”), under Furon Investment, which also increased its investment in this round. The successive completion of early-stage financings marks a new development phase for Rehydration Therapeutics in the R&D of ophthalmic small nucleic acid drugs, extrahepatic tissue-targeted delivery, and clinical translation.The funds raised in this round of financing will be primarily used to advance the clinical trials and subsequent clinical development of the company’s core pipeline asset, YM-101., while also supporting the continued R&D of a broader pipeline, accelerating preclinical validation, process development, and clinical trial applications for candidate programs. Furthermore, this round of financing will be used to strengthen the company’s talent pipeline, with a focus on recruiting key personnel in clinical management, early-stage R&D, and quality systems, thereby further solidifying the company’s R&D and translational capabilities in the field of innovative ophthalmic nucleic acid therapeutics.Oligonucleotide therapeutics have become one of the key directions in global innovative drug development due to their abundant targets, clear mechanisms of action, and relatively well-defined development pathways. However, efficient and precise delivery of oligonucleotide drugs to extrahepatic tissues remains a core challenge long faced by the industry, beyond the liver. Ocular diseases, characterized by accessible local administration, relatively well-defined lesion areas, and easily observable clinical endpoints, provide an important application scenario for tissue-specific delivery and clinical translation of oligonucleotide therapeutics.Scene.Rehydration Therapeutics (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of innovative oligonucleotide therapeutics for ophthalmic indications. Rehydration Therapeutics was co-founded by a team with expertise in oligonucleotide drug R&D, ophthalmic clinical translation, and industrialization.Rehydration Therapeutics centers its strategy on small nucleic acid therapeutics, focusing on specific targeted delivery and treatment for extrahepatic tissues, particularly ocular tissues. Addressing the long-standing unmet medical needs in major ophthalmic diseases, the company systematically advances its pipeline from basic research, candidate molecule discovery, efficacy validation, and non-clinical evaluation to clinical development. It is building a differentiated R&D portfolio with a focus on dry eye disease, corneal dystrophies, geographic atrophy, thyroid eye disease, uveitis, and macular degeneration.
The company’s lead pipeline candidate, YM-101, is being developed for dry eye disease and represents Rehydration Therapeutics’ current key ophthalmic oligonucleotide drug project. Dry eye disease affects a large patient population with high recurrence rates, and existing treatment options still suffer from slow onset of action, significant variability in response, and susceptibility to drug resistance.YM-101 is designed to precisely modulate key pathological processes associated with ocular surface inflammation via topical administration, offering a differentiated therapeutic option for patients with moderate-to-severe dry eye disease. The program has demonstrated highly positive results in completed investigator-initiated trials (IITs). The company is systematically advancing critical activities aligned with IND filing requirements, including CMC, non-clinical safety evaluation, pharmacodynamics, quality studies, and clinical development preparations.In addition to YM-101, the company is concurrently advancing multiple innovative nucleic acid drug pipelines in ophthalmology. Among these, YM-102 targets fundus diseases such as geographic atrophy caused by age-related macular degeneration, while YM-103 focuses on ocular surface genetic disorders such as corneal dystrophies.Going forward, the Company will remain committed to a clinical-need-driven approach and science-based innovation as its core driver, continuously expanding its candidate pipeline in the areas of ocular surface inflammation, corneal diseases, retinal degenerative diseases, and immune-related eye disorders, thereby advancing more innovative oligonucleotide therapeutics for ophthalmology into clinical translation and delivering innovative treatment solutions with greater clinical value to eye disease patients worldwide.Zhang Chuan, founder of Rehydration Therapeutics, stated“We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Bencao Capital, the Shanghai Future Industry Fund, and other investors in this round for their trust and recognition of Rehydration Therapeutics. We also thank our existing shareholders, Furong Investment and Kanghe Yi, for their affirmation and continued support. As programmable therapeutics, small nucleic acid drugs offer advantages such as a broad range of targets, well-defined mechanisms, upstream regulation, and strong versatility, making them one of the primary forms of next-generation medicines. Currently, the focus of small nucleic acid drug development has shifted toward extrahepatic tissue-targeted delivery and the treatment of more common diseases. Leveraging our long-term scientific research accumulation, the company has established an innovative nucleic acid molecular modification platform, an siRNA drug sequence design and high-throughput screening platform, and a tissue-specific targeted molecule screening platform to ensure the R&D and clinical translation of ophthalmic small nucleic acid therapeutics. In the future, we will further strengthen close collaboration with universities, hospitals, and industry partners, closely addressing clinical pain points to precisely design highly effective ophthalmic small nucleic acid drugs, thereby meeting unmet clinical needs and benefiting a wide patient population.”Hong Jiaxu, Co-Founder of Rehydration Therapeutics, stated“As an ophthalmologist, I encounter a large number of patients with ocular surface diseases such as moderate-to-severe dry eye on a daily basis. I am deeply aware of their frustration and longing for treatments that often have a slow onset of action and limited efficacy. Driven by these clinical unmet needs, our original aspiration in dedicating ourselves to the research and development of ophthalmic oligonucleotide drugs is to precisely target the pathological roots of disease and provide patients with more durable and convenient solutions. The positive results achieved by YM-101 in early-stage clinical trials have been highly encouraging. This financing will strongly propel its clinical translation, accelerating the transformation of scientific achievements into accessible, effective medicines for patients. We will continue to adopt a strategy driven by clinical challenges—guiding laboratory research and returning to clinical validation—with a full commitment to developing more innovative drugs that truly improve patients’ quality of life.”Source: Rehydration Therapeutics
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