Start-Up Previews (09/2007)
Executive Summary
A preview of the emerging health care companies profiled in the current issue of Start-Up. This month's profile group, "The Eyes Still Have It," features profiles of Alacrity Biosciences, Eyeon Therapeutics, Mobius Therapeutics and OcuCure Therapeutics. Plus these Start-Ups Across Health Care: CyberHeart, GlycoVaxyn, TheraCardia and Vicus Therapeutics.
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CyberHeart Inc.
While no medical device start-up operates in a risk-free zone, CyberHeart is minimizing its risk by using core technology that is already proven in another therapeutic area, cancer. The start-up has licensed cardiac tissue ablation rights to Accuray Inc.'s CyberKnife robotic radiosurgery system, and intends to use it to develop a completely noninvasive approach for the large, unmet atrial fibrillation market.
OcuCure Therapeutics Inc.
Tubulin is attracting increasing attention as a potential target to halt angiogenesis in the eye as well as in tumors. OcuCure Therapeutics Inc. is one of several firms developing it to treat macular degeneration. If this approach proves to be as effective as anti-VEGF approaches like Lucentis, OcuCure could be positioned to win over a significant share of the market as its drug would be administered topically, not via injection in the eye.
Mobius Therapeutics LLC
Mobius Therapeutics hopes to make invasive glaucoma surgery, currently a last resort because of complications and high failure rates, safer and more convenient. The company will reformulate mitomycin-c, an anti-fibrotic drug used off-label in glaucoma surgery, pioneer FDA approval for the drug's ophthalmic use, and bring it to market rapidly in an easy-to-use, single-dose kit.