AqueSys Inc., an Irvine medical device company, said Tuesday that it’s closed a $35 million third round of funding.
The company is developing an implant for treating glaucoma, an eye disease that damages the optic nerve and is a major cause of blindness.
Ron Bache, AqueSys chief executive, said in a release that the funding makes the company “well capitalized to achieve our clinical, regulatory and commercial goals.”
Longitude Capital of Menlo Park and Greenwich, Conn., and Rho Ventures, which has offices in New York, Menlo Park and Montreal, led AqueSys’ newest round of funding.
AqueSys, founded in 2006, also received money from Washington, D.C.-based Carlyle Group; SV Life Sciences, which has offices in San Francisco, Boston and London; and a returning investor, Accuitive Medical Ventures of Palo Alto.
Longitude said it invested in AqueSys because it offered the possibility of a safe, minimally invasive surgical treatment for patients who need glaucoma surgery as well as those patents who aren’t able or unwilling to comply with their drug regimens.
The drug and surgery market for treating glaucoma totals about $4.5 billion annually, according to Longitude.
