One-Second Glaucoma Laser Treatment nearing reality for millions of Glaucoma patients
YAVNE, Israel, July 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- BELKIN Laser, the Israel-based start-up offering a 1-second, non-invasive glaucoma laser treatment announced today that it has finalized its round B financing with an oversubscription totaling $12.25M. Rimonci Capital and Santen Ventures, Inc. co-led the round. They were joined by BioLight Life Sciences, CR-CP Life Science Fund, and C-Mer Eye Care Holdings, chaired by prominent ophthalmologist Dr. Dennis Lam.
CEO, Daria Lemann-Blumenthal said: "These investments signal to us that the industry has trust in our technology which will impact the lives of millions of glaucoma patients by opening a new viable drop-less treatment option. The funds will be used to continue GLAUrious, our multi-center trial in Europe and initiate trials in Asia. Our team's hard work has paid off and the good news is that fast, easy and effective glaucoma treatment is one step closer for millions of patients."
Globally 140M people have glaucoma or ocular hypertension (OHT), a leading cause of blindness, but there are only 200,000 ophthalmologists and just 6,000 glaucoma specialists to treat them worldwide. BELKIN's automated, non-contact, painless treatment is activated by a touchscreen, controlled by a high-resolution image acquisition algorithm and a proprietary eye tracker. This unique technology, the brainchild of Prof. Michael Belkin, can be easily used by all ophthalmologists, dramatically increasing the number of treated patients, both in central and rural areas, while opening a new revenue stream for their clinics and hospitals.
Prior to this round the company raised $6.6M, which includes the Israel Innovation Authority incubator grant at the Rad Biomed Accelerator, as well as the prestigious European Horizon 2020 grant of $3M. An additional $2.5M investment was raised as part of the Series A financing round led by ZIG Ventures from Singapore.
Rimonci Capital CEO, Richel Liu said "As an early investor in both series A and B, I'm extremely impressed by what BELKIN Laser has accomplished so far - from proof of concept to positive first in human results and finally the nuanced development process of the commercial device. The capability to give greater access to glaucoma care is even closer."
Ken Araki, President of Santen Ventures, stated "Santen looks forward to helping to drive new innovation that can enable more therapeutic choices for patients, to, in turn, achieve better outcomes."
Liu Da, Managing Director at CR-CP Life Science Fund said "BELKIN's technology aligns perfectly with our investment strategy of developing long-lasting, profitable partnerships which will greatly benefit Chinese glaucoma patients". Dennis Lam, chairman and CEO of C-MER, who will join BELKIN's medical advisory board, states "BELKIN Laser's technology is very exciting, in particular their unique solution to potentially treat angle closure glaucoma, which is prevalent in Asian populations."
"BELKIN's DSLT will open up a new world for glaucoma patients," states Dr. Richard Lindstrom, Chair of BELKIN Laser's Medical Advisory Board. "This next generation SLT promises to make this procedure quicker and easier to perform, allowing doctors to meaningfully help their patients."
About BELKIN Laser:
BELKIN Laser, an Israeli clinical-stage medical device company, established in 2013 and is developing an intuitive, automated one-second glaucoma laser treatment, aimed at promoting accessibility to first-line drop-less glaucoma care by allowing any ophthalmologist and other eye care providers to treat many more patients in any location. Visit the BELKIN Laser website to learn more.
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