Eye-focused startup TearClear Corp. joined the ranks of ophthalmic device companies in Orange County with quite a calling card. The company, in addition to completing a $4.5 million series A financing, has gathered an impressive team of ophthalmology veterans that include Chairman Rick Heinick and board member Bill Link, a medical device investment guru.
Heinick was most recently chief executive of Amydis Diagnostics Inc., which provides diagnostic testing for Alzheimer’s disease, and before that served as chief executive of intraocular lens device maker RxSight Inc., formerly Calhoun Vision Inc. He was at one time executive vice president at Bausch & Lomb, a Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. company. Link co-founded Versant Ventures Management LLC. The San Francisco-based healthcare investment firm maintains a Newport Beach presence through him.
Heinick said TearClear will be based in OC and maintain a research and development facility in New Jersey and a lab in Florida. The company plans to hire. “We think the best talent for ophthalmology is in OC, and we’ll try to focus [our new office] around OC if we can,” he said.
TearClear develops a hydrogel filter designed to remove benzalkonium chloride, the most common preservative used in multidose eye drops, just before the drop is dispensed into the eye. The device is said to be “the first and only system” of its kind, according to a company press release.
The financing was co-led by Octane’s Visionary Venture Fund LLC in Aliso Viejo and venture capital firm Bluestem Capital Corp. in Sioux Falls, S.D., to support the development of the product. Visionary Venture Fund, which invests from $500,000 to $5 million, was established by OC-based accelerator Octane (see more on Octane, page 47).
Preservatives can harm the eye, especially when used long term, and though there are preservative-free single-dose bottles, they’re often more expensive and inconvenient to use, TearClear said.
The company plans to target multidose eye drops for treatment of glaucoma, over-the-counter dry eye and allergic pink eye. Chief Executive Kevin Hershfield said the market for “topical ophthalmic drugs” is about a “$10 billion market worldwide.” He was most recently chief growth officer at Laszeray Technology LLC in North Royalton, Ohio, a company that specializes in product design and manufacturing.
The TearClear management team also includes Richard D’Souza, chief science and technology officer, and Howard Golub, head of clinical development. D’Souza previously served as chief technology officer at Amydis Diagnostics. Before that, he held positions as global head of research and development at Bausch & Lomb and as chief technology officer at Johnson & Johnson specialty pharmaceuticals. Golub is a principal at clinical development and analytic consulting group Care-Safe LLC and previously was vice president of clinical research at Walgreens Inc., according to his LinkedIn profile.
TearClear’s technology came from the University of Florida, where company co-founder and inventor Anuj Chauhan served as professor and associate chairman of chemical engineering.
Data Points
Atul Butte, director of the institute for computational health sciences at the University of California-San Francisco, spoke about the future of big data in the University of California system at a symposium hosted by the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California-Irvine.
He highlighted the importance of not just collecting a “trillion points of data,” but what can be done with clinical data, including creating a systemwide clinical data warehouse that allows UC’s five academic medical centers to integrate and share data. Advanced data analytics can also be performed across all UC Health data.
The five centers are in San Francisco, Irvine, San Diego, Los Angeles and Davis.
UCI was among several universities—the others were UCLA, UCSD and UCD—awarded a grant by the National Institutes of Health in October to further research in precision medicine. The goal was to prevent and treat diseases based on individual differences, such as genetics, lifestyle and environment. The universities also worked with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and the San Diego Blood Bank.
New Indication
Irvine-based patient monitoring device maker Masimo Corp. can now offer its brain oxygen monitoring device to adults, as well as children, having received Food and Drug Administration clearance for the pediatric indication for the O3 regional oximetry and O3 pediatric sensor. The device was approved for adult use last June.
Chief Executive Joe Kiani said the device will provide a better picture of brain oxygenation, “and hopefully better outcomes for all of [the] patients including pediatrics as young as three-months old.”
Masimo has about a $4.6 billion market cap.
Teva Settles Suit
Teva Pharmaceutical Inc. in Israel agreed to pay $1.6 million for substance abuse treatment to settle a lawsuit filed by Santa Clara and Orange counties in 2014. The lawsuit alleged the drugmaker downplayed the risks of its drugs and exaggerated their benefits.
The settlement also called for Teva to refrain from false advertising, including promoting opioid painkillers for so-called off-label use.
Teva’s U.S. headquarters is in North Wales, Pa. It maintains its drug manufacturing plant in Irvine. It has a nearly $29 billion market cap.
