UVA’s seed fund and corporate venturing unit PharmStandard Ventures featured in topical dry eye syndrome peptide spinout TearSolutions' financing round, taking its total to $21.5m.

TearSolutions, a US-based developer of topical dry eye syndrome therapies spun out of University of Virginia (UVA), has closed a $6.4m funding round backed by the $10m UVA Licensing and Ventures Group Seed Fund. The transaction, comprised of preferred stock and convertible promissory notes, was led by the Virginia Tech Carilion Innovation Fund, a VC partnership between Virginia Tech’s Foundation and healthcare provider Carilion Clinic. PharmStandard Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of pharmaceutical firm PharmStandard, also equipped TearSolutions with funding, as did Medarva Foundation, the charitable funding arm of nonprofit healthcare provider Medarva Healthcare. Founded in 2013, TearSolutions is working on a topical eye drop product to help treat dry eye syndromes, a group of conditions in which tear glands no longer effectively lubricate the ocular surface, leaving the patient’s eyes susceptible to inflammation. TearSolutions’ lead product, LacripepTM, provides a naturally-occuring peptide called Lacritin it has identified as deficient in all forms of dry eye syndrome tears. The spinout’s founding research was led by co-founder Gordon Laurie, professor of cell biology in UVA’s school of medicine. Proceeds from the round will help fund phase 2 clinical trials of LacripepTM at 27 US investigation sites under conditions required by healthcare regulator Food and Drug Administration. TearSolutions last raised $8.5m in a 2017 series B round co-led by VTC Innovation Fund and Pharmstandard, with contributions from Santen Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of ophthalmology-focused drug developer Santen Pharmaceutical, as well as from unspecified existing backers. Santen previously co-led with Medarva’s Innovation unit in a $3m series A round for TearSolutions in 2015 which featured charitable think-tank Center for Innovative Technology and seed fund LaunchCapital.

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