Beacon Therapeutics Raises $170 Million in Series B Funding to Advance Development of Ophthalmic Gene Therapies

Beacon Therapeutics Holdings Limited, a leading ophthalmic gene therapy company with a mission to save and restore the vision of patients with blinding retinal diseases, announced it has raised $170 million in Series B funding.

Beacon launched in June 2023 with $120 million in funding, when it acquired UF startup and UF Innovate | Accelerate graduate AGTC, located in Alachua. The sale included AGTC’s lead clinical asset AGTC-501, which was in Phase II clinical trials at the time. UF’s Dr. Arun Srivastava from the Department of Pediatrics developed the AAV vectors used by AGTC.

In this round of funding, Forbion led the financing, which included existing investors Syncona Limited, Oxford Science Enterprises and the University of Oxford, as well as initial investments from TCGX and Advent Life Sciences. The funds will be used to support the continued clinical development of Beacon’s lead asset, AGTC-501 for X-Linked Retinitis Pigmentosa (XLRP) and generate Phase 1/2 clinical trial data for the company’s Dry Age-related Macular Degeneration (dAMD) program.

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