A team of researchers - ErythroSight, from The Australian National University (ANU) is looking for seed funding for regulatory support and partnerships in blood product manufacturing to create a market-ready company for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and other retinal diseases.

They seek experts with pharmaceutical experience in therapeutic development and potential licensing deals.

The team has developed a novel treatment by harnessing patients’ own blood to treat vision loss diseases such as AMD, one of the leading causes of incurable blindness in the developed world.

The ErythroSight team, comprising Associate Professor Riccardo Natoli, Dr Yvette Wooff, Dr Adrian Cioanca and PhD student Rakshanya Sekar from the John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) and supported by Dr Riya Palchaudhuri from ANU Research Innovation Services were selected to join CSIRO ON Accelerate program after a tough selection process with over 50 applications around Australia in last December.

The CSIRO ON Accelerate program is designed to help researchers turn their ideas into a market-ready company.

The team completed the initial bootcamp and immersion week in ON Accelerate program which supported them to increase their knowledge of the entrepreneurial journey. They are now advancing through to 14-weeks program.

“Immersion was a very active week where we learned so much information from team dynamics, knowing your customer market and stakeholder segments, to business models and IP protection. We got to pitch our project to a room of over 100 invited experts including VC, alumni, and industry experts,” said Dr Wooff.

“We were each assigned an expert and our team was given Hugo LeMessurier who is an excellent mentor. These experts will remain with us over the next 14 weeks to guide and mentor us” Dr Wooff added.

The program will now run online and in person across Australia, with the next session in Adelaide in March.

“The end goal of this program is to have a highly viable disruptive deep-tech venture which can be attractive for external funding and launched into market, along with the business and commercialisation skills to drive it there,” said Dr Wooff.

For investment and collaboration, please reach out to the ErythroSight team Dr Yvette Wooff (Yvette.Wooff@anu.edu.au)

Read previous article: ErythroSight gets major boost to develop a novel therapeutic and manufacturing pipeline for AMD