EyeCyte, Inc. Secures Seed Funding from Pfizer's Bioinnovation and Biotherapeutics Center

San Diego: EyeCyte, Inc., an early stage ophthalmology research and development company based in La Jolla, California, announced that it has secured its seed funding through an agreement with Pfizer. The financing will fund the company to drive product development of the company's initial clinical target, diabetic retinopathy.

"EyeCyte is delighted to have attracted Pfizer as an investment partner", said Mohammad A. El‐Kalay, Ph.D., president and Chief Executive Officer, EyeCyte. "We are very pleased with the terms of our collaboration and believe that Pfizer shares our goal of building a premier ophthalmology research and development organization with an emphasis on stem/progenitor cell based therapies."

"We are excited about the potential that this collaboration offers to the millions of patients suffering from vascular or degenerative eye diseases, such as macular degeneration," said Corey Goodman, Ph.D., president, Pfizer Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center. "Not only does this collaboration with EyeCyte complement our internal research efforts, it is a great example of the investment Pfizer is making in academic and biotech partnerships to accelerate research in emerging areas of science where there is still great medical need. With the financial support and complementary ophthalmology expertise from Pfizer, Dr. Friedlander and his team at EyeCyte will now be able to further advance this highly promising research in an environment that allows them to keep their autonomy, culture and entrepreneurial spirit. This approach truly is a win‐win proposition for Pfizer, for EyeCyte and for human health, and we are excited to be at the forefront of incubating highly promising research, like this, through our partnership model."

The preclinical research at Friedlander's laboratory that led to these novel ‐ and potentially, therapeutically useful ‐ discoveries has been funded through grants from the National Eye Institute (NEI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In June 2007, his lab was awarded a five‐year grant from the NEI to support the development of the use of adult stem cells as a therapy for treating the most common types of vision loss. The particular funding mechanism used to support this work, an "R24," is an NEI/NIH program specifically designed to facilitate collaborative research for the therapy of visual disorders. "Something interesting and potentially very important is happening here ‐ we may be seeing discoveries of investigator‐initiated research, funded by NIH, pushed to the clinic more rapidly by the investigators through creative collaborations among non‐profits, biotech, and big pharma," said Paul A. Sieving, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Eye Institute.

"Our goal in the next several years is to develop this new approach to treating retinal diseases to the point it can be tested in the clinic," said Dr. Friedlander. "While the NIH grant goes a long way towards enabling us to translate the pre‐clinical work into clinical application, the recent investment by Pfizer in EyeCyte provides us the means, in part, to meet the extraordinary expenses associated with developing a clinical product that we can take to the FDA for evaluation and, ultimately, to patients." "Working with EyeCyte and Pfizer," says Friedlander, "I have every confidence that we will bring this potential therapy to the point of being tested in the clinic. This is an extraordinary opportunity to take highly novel laboratory concepts, test them experimentally, and translate them into therapies for the treatment of blinding eye diseases. The combination of NIH‐funded pre‐clinical research, the tremendous environment at a non‐profit like The Scripps Research Institute and the strengths of translational biotech and pharmaceutical organizations like EyeCyte and Pfizer are the new paradigm that will enable us to more rapidly translate science from the bench to therapeutics for the bedside."

About Pfizer and the Pfizer Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center

Pfizer Inc is the world's largest research‐based biomedical and pharmaceutical company, employing approximately 85,000 colleagues in more than 90 countries. In 2007, Pfizer invested $8.1 billion in research and development. The Pfizer Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and combines cutting‐edge biology, new platform technologies, and advanced research tools to discover and develop new medicines. Located in one of the hubs of biotechnology, the BBC has the entrepreneurial spirit of biotech and collaborates broadly with the academic, biotech, and venture communities to focus on discovering and developing new medicines. In April 2008, Pfizer announced the formation of Pfizer Regenerative Medicine, a new research unit focused on stem cells and modulators of regenerative processes. This unit allows Pfizer to conduct research into therapies for organ repair, degenerative diseases, disability prevention and elements of the aging process to deliver the portfolio of the future.

About EyeCyte, Inc.

EyeCyte, Inc., an early stage ophthalmology research and development company based in La Jolla, California. The company is exploiting a decade of research into the causes of, and potential treatments for, retinal disease by Professor Martin Friedlander, M.D., Ph.D. and his laboratory at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. EyeCyte’s regenerative medicine technologies are under development to treat acquired and inherited retinal diseases that include diabetic retinopathy, retinopathy of prematurity, retinal vascular occlusive disease (e.g., central retinal vein occlusion), age‐related macular degeneration (AMD) and retinitis pigmentosa. Dr. El‐Kalay and his team collectively have over 50 years in the biotechnology industry in both management and product development. All of the preclinical research in the Friedlander laboratory that has led to these novel and potentially therapeutically useful discoveries has been funded through grants from the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health.