S2, E3: Ray Therapeutics leveraging optogenetics to tackle vision loss with CEO Paul Bresge and Dr José-Alain Sahel (University of Pittsburgh)

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[00:01:08] Today we're exploring the fascinating world of vision restoration as we look at the journey

[00:01:13] of California-based optogenetics company, Ray Therapeutics. The company is trying to tackle a bunch of

[00:01:20] late-stage inherited retinal disorders and return vision to thousands of close-to-blind patients

[00:01:27] with an effective gene therapy. The company raised $100 million series A in May 2023,

[00:01:34] and is making good tracks to get its lead asset into abbreviated clinical trials

[00:01:40] first in Retinitis Pikmentosa. Joining us to talk about Ray's journey is CEO and founder Paul

[00:01:46] Brzewky. He talks about how his daughters diagnosis motivated him to enter the biotech world to

[00:01:52] find a cure. His journey found in Ray Therapeutics and Raising funds in a tough market,

[00:01:58] and the company's players to enter clinical trials and beyond. Also joining us is Professor Jozé

[00:02:04] Sahel, one of the leading pioneers of the optogenetics world coming from the University of Pittsburgh.

[00:02:11] He discusses the general optogenetics landscape which is now a very active space

[00:02:16] and how raised program differentiates from the rest. I hope you enjoy the episode.

[00:02:22] Hi Paul, thanks for joining the podcast. Thank you so much for inviting me. Happy to be here.

[00:02:27] Just to start us off, can you give us a brief, high-level overview of the company's technology

[00:02:34] and offering and the problem you're trying to address? Sure, very happy too. So,

[00:02:39] at Ray Therapeutics we are an optogenetic gene therapy company, targeting patients with

[00:02:46] retinal degeneration. So, our first program is targeting patients with retinitis pigmentosa

[00:02:55] and that we have a follow on program for patients with starguards disease

[00:03:00] and then we're very excited about moving into geographic astrophysic because starguards

[00:03:05] diseases essentially are juvenile form of geographic astrophysic. So, we're very patient centric.

[00:03:12] Optogenetics is a technique that enables the control of neurons or other cell types with light.

[00:03:18] In the field of ophthalmology, it's a technique being used to restore vision.

[00:03:23] Retinitis pigmentosa starguards disease and geographic atrophy

[00:03:27] are three distinct original disorders each characterized by genetic factors and progressive

[00:03:33] vision loss. Retinitis pigmentosa affects peripheral vision, starguards disease impact

[00:03:39] central vision and geographic atrophy involves a macular function deterioration. And while Ray will

[00:03:46] look to target all three of these diseases, the major and first focus is on retinitis pigmentosa.

[00:03:52] And our patient population is really late to end stage disease patients. So there's a lot of

[00:04:01] really exciting work that's going on in the field, particularly in, you know,

[00:04:06] cell engineering therapy for patients with blinding diseases. But unfortunately for

[00:04:12] MCH patients, most of those programs are focused on slowing down the progression of disease.

[00:04:17] So we're very excited to bring hope and hopefully a new therapy to patients who have already

[00:04:24] lost low or even all of their vision.

[00:04:28] So going back to where it all began, the story behind Ray's founding is especially unique

[00:04:34] given that Paul isn't your typical biotech founder. My dad was the founder of what became a large

[00:04:42] generic pharmaceutical company in Canada and then I started off my career in contract manufacturing

[00:04:49] with the POSA format and cosmetic industries. I left the industry and went on a

[00:04:56] number of different things including I've got very heavily involved in real estate and

[00:05:01] operating businesses. The majority of his professional career was spent working for a Canadian

[00:05:07] logistics company where he climbed his way to CEO. But it was some personal circumstances that

[00:05:13] drove him to enter the world of biotech around 14 years ago after his middle daughter Tamar

[00:05:19] was diagnosed with a retinitis pigmentosa just a couple of weeks after she turned 15.

[00:05:26] We were told by the chief of the model just to Toronto's sick kids hospital that she was going

[00:05:31] blind and that there was nothing that could be done to save her vision. Essentially we were

[00:05:35] sent off with a booklet for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and that was it. And

[00:05:41] that day I spoke to her and made her a promise that I would do everything that I could to find

[00:05:53] her agreement or a cure and in return her promise to me was that she should live her life as

[00:06:00] fully as she wanted to and could and we both kept our ends of the bargain. At that particular

[00:06:10] appointment where she was told that she was losing her vision the doctor told her,

[00:06:15] you need to think about what you're going to study. You need to think about your career choices

[00:06:20] which was actually so inappropriate in hindsight and here we are 13 years later, 14 years later

[00:06:28] and she has a mass difference degree in visual arts from tough university. She's an incredible young

[00:06:35] woman and incredible artist and my inspiration to do what I do every day. So that led me to find

[00:06:44] some really exciting science out of university California Irvine brilliant researchers,

[00:06:50] a husband and wife team Henry class and then Jing Yang. They were working on a written

[00:06:56] oprogenator self therapy program that had incredible proof of concept in animals and I got

[00:07:05] involved with them that led to the formation of Jay site and I had the good fortune of taking

[00:07:13] that program all the way to what is now the initiation of a space three study with Santa and

[00:07:20] pharmaceuticals. Jay site signed a significant partnership with Santa and pharmaceuticals in

[00:07:26] which was also the year that Paul decided to leave Jay site to start his new and current

[00:07:31] venture co-founding Ray the Reputix in February 2021. The difference between what Jay site is doing

[00:07:39] and what Ray their appearance is doing is really addressing different patient populations. So

[00:07:45] what we learned from the Jay site data is that the therapy works best in patients who are at the

[00:07:51] earlier stage of disease to stop the progression of the loss and also to provide

[00:07:57] perfect factors to dormant voter receptors to get them working again. But for patients at the

[00:08:03] end stage of disease who no longer have voter receptors that the therapy is less likely to be effectors.

[00:08:11] So Ray is addressing those more advanced patients where the Jay site therapy is no longer an option.

[00:08:17] So while these patients no longer have voter receptors, those cells responsible for converting

[00:08:22] light into brain signals. They still do have either rational ganglion cells or by polar cells

[00:08:29] basically neurons involved in vision signaling. So we're targeting ready the remaining cells

[00:08:35] in the retina and then using an AA lead gene therapy to get those cells to function like

[00:08:43] voter receptors. So for the retinaces pigmentosa program we're targeting the retinal ganglion

[00:08:49] cells and then for our Starguys disease and geographic astrophied programs we're targeting the bite

[00:08:55] polar cells. So knowing that Paul isn't the scientist in the equation, where do the science come from?

[00:09:03] Well that tracks back to Ray's now co-founder Sean Ainsworth. Sean was a former CEO of another

[00:09:10] optogenetics company retro sense that got acquired by Alagan in 2016. So Sean actually was the one

[00:09:19] who brought this to my attention. I saw the data that had come out of the really the same lab

[00:09:26] that formed retina sense and you can imagine over the last 13, 14 years I have looked at so

[00:09:33] much animal data that it's quite remarkable but I had never seen anything like I had seen in the

[00:09:41] data which really formed right there a few days. So just to give you an idea of what excited me so

[00:09:47] much about this and what differentiated it from reading everything else I had seen before. Our inventor

[00:09:53] had used that inventors name is Dr. Pan and esteemed ophthalmology professor and one of the pioneers

[00:10:00] of the optogenetics field coming out of Wayne State University. He had previously developed a drug

[00:10:06] program with retrosense based on a light sensitive protein called channel rovedopsin and was working

[00:10:12] on some new experiments with that protein in a bunch of blind mice. So these mice are

[00:10:20] on blind they don't even have the developed cortical pathways for vision and yet we are able to

[00:10:28] I was going to say restore but it's not really restoring we're able to give them 50%

[00:10:35] of the vision of purity, of wildlife and new normal contrast sensitivity. So when I saw that data

[00:10:44] you know and again given that the bar is so high with the animal model it was an absolute no brainer

[00:10:50] that this was where I was going to hang my hat and this was a program that could translate into

[00:10:56] reading meaning for therapy for patients. So Paul and Sean decided they were going to pursue

[00:11:01] this endeavor and went out to raise funds. The company raised a seed round of $6 million in 2021

[00:11:09] led by four biocapital and they also received a grant of $4 million from the California Institute

[00:11:16] of Regenerative Medicine. Then two years later in May 2023 they closed an over subscribed

[00:11:22] $100 million series A led by nover holdings with participation from de-filled management,

[00:11:29] nor West partners amongst other investors. I'm so grateful that the investors saw the same

[00:11:36] opportunity for this therapy that I did that we were able to do such a successful route particularly

[00:11:42] in 2023. This was one of the biggest financing announced in 2023 and Paul and I spoke about

[00:11:48] what the investor saw in raise mission given that this field is not new,

[00:11:53] has been around for close to 10 years with a number of programs in the clinic. We made sure that we

[00:11:59] could articulate and demonstrate why our program was so highly differentiated from all other

[00:12:08] programs out there in the space. The you know exciting part for me is that I think it's an

[00:12:15] question of all that proof of concept is there. We seen in other programs, you know,

[00:12:21] particularly the genocide program that was published in Nature. Genocide biologics is a

[00:12:27] French biotech that Paul says was the first to publish clinical data and successfully confirmed

[00:12:33] that octogenetics really works to restore vision in patients and in fact the founder of that company

[00:12:38] is going to join us later in the podcast. The problem today has been that the proteins that have been

[00:12:46] used are not light sensitive enough so in the genocide program for example, patients have to

[00:12:54] wear light enhancing goggles in order to activate the protein to be able to see and we know that

[00:13:02] patients will do anything to get some vision back. The problem is that it's really difficult

[00:13:09] when you think about combining a therapeutic with a device through a regulatory and commercial

[00:13:16] program. Obviously, that makes it much more challenging. So the fact that our protein is activated

[00:13:22] in ambient light and shouldn't have the need for any additional light enhancing, I wear gives us

[00:13:29] you a much clearer regulatory and commercial path. The other thing that we've done this

[00:13:34] differentiated from everybody else in the space is that we've highly bio-engineered this protein

[00:13:40] very specifically for human vision restoration. So it's not just you're increasing the light sensitivity,

[00:13:46] it's also taking into account all of the different functions of vision that are required to have

[00:13:53] meaningful change. Paul said that another thing that was attractive to investors was that Ray was

[00:13:58] able to replicate the studies multiple times and show the same results which obviously gives investors

[00:14:04] a lot of confidence in a field with a huge amount of need. The data really spoke for itself,

[00:14:10] and then of course the management team as well. So I have an actually brilliant chief scientist,

[00:14:19] chief medical officer by the name of Peter Francis who I consider really the most knowledgeable

[00:14:25] person on the planet for after genetics and then a chief development officer, your name is Jenny Holt

[00:14:33] you know who's been involved in the marketer space for for many years. So it was really I think

[00:14:39] a combination of the technology and then the team that gave the investors confidence in our program.

[00:14:45] Ray was also able to demonstrate to investors that their data should translate pretty well

[00:14:50] to approval and points. So we don't have to rely on you know on end points that are maybe more

[00:14:58] in discovery, we believe that patients should be able to gain vision acuity and or you know high

[00:15:06] functioning navigation. And those are already you know really well known to the SNA.

[00:15:13] So the team at Ray were able to successfully articulate their differentiation value

[00:15:18] and clear part to market to investors, but something that did cross my mind especially hearing

[00:15:24] Paul speak about his daughter and motivations for entering the field is that this mission is

[00:15:29] very personal and emotional for Paul. And while that might be incredibly compelling for most

[00:15:35] people for investors that could do a bit of a risk. Yeah and that's actually a great question

[00:15:42] because there were investors who challenged me on you know obviously the investors

[00:15:51] they want to return on their investment and you know they they care about patients for sure

[00:15:56] but they also care about you know their investments. So there was a lot of pressure testing

[00:16:01] you know are you going to make the right decisions as a CEO that are good for the program

[00:16:08] as well as you know be good for the patients and they converge there's no question you know

[00:16:14] if we can develop a successful therapy which you know I have a very high confidence level

[00:16:19] that we will the investors will do even enormously well. And I think that I'm you know I'm able to

[00:16:25] have you know a very balanced approach. So I wear my senior hat you know and I wear my parent hat

[00:16:33] but I think they they work very much hand in hand. So let's get a different expert perspective on

[00:16:39] this. I was super privileged to talk to a bit of an optogenetics legend and that's Professor

[00:16:45] Jose Sahel. He's the distinguished professor and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology

[00:16:51] at the University of Pittsburgh and he's the founding director of the Vision Institute in Paris

[00:16:57] but he's also an inventor with more than 40 patents. I has co-founded a number of Vision

[00:17:03] Restoration focus by a text including the optogenetics company mentioned earlier. Genside

[00:17:09] publishing some groundbreaking clinical proof of concept data that has really elevated the field.

[00:17:15] I heard of the writer of the text first because I knew of the one of the scientific

[00:17:20] sources of the panel and he's a landmark worker years ago in optogenetics. And then I

[00:17:27] had the opportunity to see very early actually be up a pair with using a new protein that seems

[00:17:33] more responsive to light and we've forgotten the tips of responses. So I was interested in that

[00:17:39] and then over time I got to know the team. This is a unique situation as Professor Sahel knows

[00:17:46] Paul and the team at Raytherapeutics but he's not connected to the company in any adviseary role

[00:17:51] and he's technically a competitive being one of the co-founders of Genside. But he's happy to speak

[00:17:57] objectively on Ray's potential and also cheer it on from the sidelines if it happens to be a success.

[00:18:04] Because my key focus is on patients I'm happy to support any of the fault that could

[00:18:09] provide good outcomes to patients. Dr. Sahel said that the drivers for investor interest in

[00:18:15] this company will likely a combination of a solid scientific and management team along with

[00:18:21] the unique and novel protein that originated out of Dr. Pan's lab which is responding to levels

[00:18:27] of lighting that is below what is currently used in the field. One of the key issues with stogeyetic

[00:18:33] is that we are trying to transform cells but not responding to light or not only responding to

[00:18:39] light, interferatory sectors and so that we have to express proteins that are responding to

[00:18:44] light but because we are not benefiting from all the transition gascane that exists in the normal

[00:18:50] of the receptors you have to amplify your signal. So the biggest barrier to efficacy for every company

[00:18:56] is amplifying that signal and as Paul mentioned earlier Dr. Sahel's team at Genside is using

[00:19:03] amplifying goggles that can codes that signal but with raised therapeutic not using any device

[00:19:10] their special protein is able to respond in a normal range of lighting that we're living in daily.

[00:19:17] While Dr. Sahel said that if you don't use a device this can be at the extensive speed of response

[00:19:23] and it can be slow to optimize the ability to respond to light but in raised case

[00:19:28] the kinetics so far are looking pretty good. Based on the experimental data of XNV12 and in

[00:19:35] people you know small animal models, we seem to have a good answer to provide the good response to

[00:19:41] light in patient. Obviously we won't know until we get to patient. So speaking about patients,

[00:19:46] Paul said the ray plants are getting lead compound RTX 015 into the clinic sometime this year 2024

[00:19:54] and the first trial will be in retinitis pigmentosa patients. Now just for some context there are about

[00:19:59] 100,000 patients with retinitis pigmentosa in the US but rays are dressing later stage patients

[00:20:05] which gives them a target population of around 20,000. But a huge benefit of this therapy is that

[00:20:12] it's independent of the cause of genes so in retinitis pigmentosa there are 70, 80 genes

[00:20:21] you know already identified probably many more because so many patients are unable to even find

[00:20:27] an identifiable gene that it's really important that we can address patients independently of what

[00:20:34] their cause of their gene is. The sparklexerna program which was the first gene therapy that was

[00:20:43] ever approved that was in retinitis pigmentosa. Just jumping in here for a bit of a biotech refresher

[00:20:49] sparklexerna was a huge deal back in 2017 for its major gene therapy approval milestone.

[00:20:56] Distrog made a number of big headlines at the time not only for its dramatic vision restoration

[00:21:02] efficacy but also it's price at a one-time treatment of $850,000 and this drug sparked

[00:21:10] pun intended the company's eventual acquisition to rush in 2019 for $4.8 billion. A classic

[00:21:18] biotech unicorn success story. Gene Bennett is an absolute hero of mine as you can imagine

[00:21:24] she's you know behind the lectern of program it's been incredibly meaningful for patients

[00:21:31] it's your absolutely life changing and we've seen that are sustainable over so many years

[00:21:38] the problem is that it only addresses one mutation of around $4,400 patients around the world.

[00:21:46] So the fact that we are targeting patients independent on whatever the specific gene they have

[00:21:53] really you know broad and supropulation greatly. Paul and I discussed the regulatory part for the

[00:21:58] drug in retinitis pigmentosa perhaps abbreviated timelines and benchmarks for an approval from the

[00:22:05] FDA and Paul said that he's seen the FDA change their position over the years and that's giving

[00:22:10] him some optimism. So for example you know at Jay site we were one of the first companies actually

[00:22:17] with the first in off the modulator in the third ever to receive a designation called RMAT and that's

[00:22:24] a real gift from the agency because it allows you to have constant interaction with them and they

[00:22:31] really work with you as their partner. As you need to establish that there is proof of concept

[00:22:37] so we hope to apply for RMAT you know really quickly after we go into clinic but even just given

[00:22:44] the fact that this is a rare disease it allows for a limited number of patients in an

[00:22:50] clinical study you know phase one nine to twelve patients and then a quick pivot based on efficacy

[00:22:58] into you know a phase two three pivotal study design. So there there is really an expedited

[00:23:06] path to approval here. In addition to that expedited pathway to approval with a low number of

[00:23:11] patients recruited onto clinical trials another advantage of studying late stage patients is the time

[00:23:17] it takes to reach the meaningful data. We expect to see efficacy within a few weeks of dosing the

[00:23:25] patients so within a couple of months we should be able to see how the therapy is working in the

[00:23:31] patients and that will give us data obviously very quickly. When you think about these other

[00:23:38] programs that are you know and again there's so important for patients but generally because they're

[00:23:44] looking to slow down the progression of disease by virtue that these are slowly progressing to

[00:23:49] these so just by virtue that there are longer you know timelines and that makes it a long

[00:23:57] development program obviously we're going to show durability to the agency that at least you

[00:24:03] know the patients will hopefully see a fit quickly and will be able to measure how quickly we

[00:24:10] can move based on that efficacy reader. And Professor Siles can testify to that with his own

[00:24:15] experience in the clinic. The advantage of vision restoration approaches is that you're not comparing

[00:24:22] to a natural history of a disease with demonstrating a change in the stroke of vision loss

[00:24:27] in that case you want to show vision restoration so this kind of curve you know experience for

[00:24:32] example in the genitality tend to grow months after the therapy so we are talking about years

[00:24:37] you're able to meet a lot of shorter pathway to demonstrate vision benefits. Even with these

[00:24:43] obvious advantages we know how biotech works and we will likely have some curve balls ahead to navigate.

[00:24:50] It won't be all smooth sailing so Paul and I talked a little bit about the major hurdles ahead.

[00:24:56] No I'm smiling because I'm hoping it will be smooth sailing. We're doing everything that we can

[00:25:04] to make it smooth sailing and we're doing things differently. For example you know when

[00:25:12] he said that in order to prime the study for success I guess in anticipation of some potential hurdles

[00:25:18] instead of using existing retina clinics that are not the most experienced with testing patients

[00:25:24] who are blind or nearly blind raised developing its own testing facility in the form of a vision

[00:25:30] research and assessment institute in California. We've brought on some of the best low vision

[00:25:37] experts in the country and we will actually be using the facility to do this end for interesting so

[00:25:46] it's very generous on the patients as you can imagine a lot of these patients haven't been tested

[00:25:52] and we're going to be asking them to even get a baseline on neurovision security and to see

[00:25:57] whether or not they're able to navigate a maze you know without the guides that they use

[00:26:02] like their dogs or their family members and we're going to ask them to see if there's any

[00:26:08] your peripheral patient. Paul said that all of those things can be very stressful and time

[00:26:14] consuming for patients so a common controlled environment with low vision experts that are able to

[00:26:19] evaluate baselines and changes from baselines gives ray a better shot at success.

[00:26:26] So while we're relying on vision security and the navigation maze you know we we're also incorporating

[00:26:33] you know every end point that we believe could be meaningful. Professor Sael said that

[00:26:39] he's aware that Ray has had quite productive conversations with the FDA to accelerate the program

[00:26:45] but he cautioned that one can accelerate too much as to not compromise on safety assurances.

[00:26:51] Obviously like every opportunity trial because we are expressing a protein that is

[00:26:55] far into your mind you have to check on the even response you have to check on the

[00:26:59] tolerance of the vector. We thought trial we showed that this was working well with puttory

[00:27:05] runs and of course we need to make sure that we don't compromise the chances of patient

[00:27:09] to retain vision they have and more importantly to be involved in our future therapies.

[00:27:14] It would be promising for them. There are a number of factors that support the safety profile

[00:27:18] of Ray's lead therapeutic firstly it's using an adenovial vector to deliver the protein and this

[00:27:25] vector has been used in humans in several trials then there's the special protein.

[00:27:30] This protein has already proven to be efficient and safe in small animals I'm I'm

[00:27:36] pretty sure about currently doing the primary work to show that the immunogenicity and the

[00:27:41] biogistribution are relevant and then the that is pretty straightforward to you know designing the

[00:27:48] trial and we are looking at really above the safety but it's also beyond common measures especially

[00:27:52] the demonstration of benefiting real life what we have vehicles functional vision which is

[00:27:58] the demonstration but tasks people are doing in daily life made possible using this technology

[00:28:03] which obviously would be the best possible demonstration of the efficiency so I think we are

[00:28:08] touching this you buy all possible angles in a very relevant way because the team again is

[00:28:14] very experienced and very knowledgeable. As Ray and Barks on its optogenetics journey Dr. Siles

[00:28:21] talked about the landscape in general and there were quite a few players in the space including

[00:28:26] sparing vision nanoscripped their pudexpionic vision and a few others around the globe.

[00:28:32] The good news for patient is that the lot is happening. Fortunately there will be competition

[00:28:36] but I think Ray have the net also we have a resource season we have a team to get it to

[00:28:41] we have a multitude to the broad for the vision to. In terms of future out the for the company

[00:28:49] where does that money take you in terms of timeline like when would you look to raise more money and

[00:28:54] need more money like a series B. Yeah let me send another great question this was session

[00:28:59] RJP Morgan for me because I can't remember your JP Morgan then I was not out raising money

[00:29:07] in some form or another you know I mean that's just the world that we live in in biotech

[00:29:12] we're so fortunate that we have enough funding to take us really all the way through to BLA

[00:29:19] if we need to in our lead program. So obviously you know depends on what we do you know strategic

[00:29:25] me and how we think about this in terms of a program versus a platform and the other products

[00:29:31] and the other indications that that we want to address but we have enough funding you know to take

[00:29:37] us to major infection points and that it's an absolute gift because it allows us again to put

[00:29:44] all of our resources into just getting this here a few patients. If all goes well poll did say that

[00:29:50] in the next five years they could actually have a drug on the market given their abbreviated timelines

[00:29:56] and this might sound premature but my immediate thought went to pricing given that Luxeterna was

[00:30:01] price at 850,000 and I wanted to know if Cole and his team had given that any thought.

[00:30:06] I'm so looking forward to having those discussions.

[00:30:12] That means that we're you know when you're talking and debating about pricing

[00:30:18] that's a really exciting time and I hope that we're having those conversations.

[00:30:22] Obviously there are a comparable products like the Luxeterna products on the market

[00:30:27] so at least you know we do have certain data points as we think about this you know from a

[00:30:33] commercial standpoint but right now we are just we're so focused on getting into clinic and having

[00:30:41] patients see and you know getting this to a commercial program really as quickly as possible.

[00:30:48] Given Cole's unique journey I was curious to know where he saw the company be on that

[00:30:53] and whether the company was looking to build itself into a big up to genetics powerhouse potentially

[00:30:58] going public or whether it's so itself safer in the hands of a big farmer once he got its approval.

[00:31:05] I would say both were very focused again on getting to clinic and I'm getting if there are

[00:31:11] future patients with blinding diseases but there is enormous potential for oxygen addicts in

[00:31:17] other indications particularly in the neurospace and we're very interested in that as well.

[00:31:25] So I see the potential for rate therapeutics to bring be the optogenetic platform company

[00:31:32] in the future. We're excited to get the therapy to patients in regular diseases,

[00:31:38] particularly our P first followed by starguars and then as I mentioned GA but the potential for

[00:31:45] optogenetics as a therapy is absolutely enormous. Is that potential for you to also do partnership

[00:31:51] deals on the side with the platform? I have a very open mind I mean we are again in a really great

[00:31:59] place and there's a lot of interest from the statistics in our program there was even before we did

[00:32:05] the series A-rays and I think again Matt Gaze validation to the investors that there is opportunities

[00:32:12] for partnerships, for licensing, for exits everything else but because we have the funding

[00:32:19] and because we're just so focused on clinic that metric we're doing at this time but I'm

[00:32:23] always open as one has to be as a CEO in this space. Moving forward a key challenge for not only

[00:32:31] Ray but everyone in the field will be improving resolution and activating individual cells within

[00:32:38] the retina to replicate the natural vision signal. Current methods just lack that necessary

[00:32:45] specificity. One of these questions is a light adaptation, how do we cope with different levels

[00:32:50] of lighting? How do you avoid foot-to-for-bears or you want to could responsiveness which no

[00:32:55] one foot-to-for-bear means something that needs to be explored and probably addressed?

[00:33:00] The ultimate goal in the field would be to bring back color vision which professor Siles says is still

[00:33:07] a long way off in the up to genetics field but some researchers are working hard on it so it could be

[00:33:13] a future possibility. So that's it for another episode of raising biotech, a truly

[00:33:20] groundbreaking area of science that will note out have a lot to show for itself in the coming decade.

[00:33:27] Thanks to an Iguest called Brezgi and Professor Siles for sharing their insights on this episode

[00:33:32] and thanks to you for tuning in. Remember if you like the episode please share it around

[00:33:37] and follow and subscribe for more episodes. For now I'm Serani Fernando and I'll catch you next time

[00:33:44] on Raising Biotech.