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Character Biosciences Raises $93 Million Series B to Advance Precision Medicine for Progressive Eye Diseases

Character Biosciences Raises $93 Million Series B to Advance Precision Medicine for Progressive Eye Diseases

April 2, 2025 Craig Etkin

– Funding will enable lead candidates CTX114 and CTX203 for AMD to enter clinical trialsin thenext year

JERSEY CITY, N.J.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Character Biosciences, a precision medicine company transforming drug development for polygenic diseases, announced today an oversubscribed $93 million Series B financing round to accelerate the advancement of its pipeline of precision therapies to treat degenerative eye diseases, starting with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The funding was co-led by new investors aMoon and Luma Group, with additional participation from Bausch + Lomb and Jefferson Life Sciences, alongside existing investors Innovation Endeavors, Catalio Capital Management, S32, and KdT Ventures.

AMD affects one in eight people over 50 and is the leading cause of blindness for older adults worldwide. Despite its complexity, AMD has long been treated as a uniform disease, contributing to high failure rates in drug development. To apply a precision medicine approach to this disease, Character Bio has partnered with over 150 ophthalmology treatment centers across the US to conduct an AMD-focused observational trial, integrating genetics with longitudinal clinical and imaging data for over 6,500 consented patients. This proprietary resource enables the company to reclassify AMD into genetically-defined subtypes, discover and prioritize therapeutic targets, and optimize patient selection for clinical trials.

This data-driven approach has led to the discovery and advancement of its lead candidates, CTX203 and CTX114, which target key drivers of retinal cell death and vision loss. CTX114, a best-in-class complement inhibitor, is designed to slow the progression of geographic atrophy in advanced dry AMD, while CTX203, a first-in-class lipid regulator, aims to prevent progression to advanced AMD. Both programs are expected to enter clinical trials in the next year. The company is also leveraging its AI-driven, genomics-based platform to expand its pipeline into additional ophthalmic diseases.

“Millions of patients suffering from degenerative eye diseases lack effective treatments that delay disease progression,” said Cheng Zhang, CEO & Co-Founder, Character Biosciences. “By identifying the genetic modifiers of their disease progression, we can develop therapeutics to more precisely target the root causes of disease and improve clinical translation. This funding allows us to advance our lead programs into first-in-human trials, with the goal of bringing new therapies to patients who urgently need them.”

“The next frontier of precision medicine lies at the convergence of genomics, deep phenotyping, and AI applied to complex polygenic disorders,” said Reut Shema, PhD Partner, aMoon. “The Character Bio team is driving innovation forward by uniquely assembling historically siloed disciplines, spanning patient advocacy and provider partnerships, data integration and machine learning, statistical genetics and computational biology, as well as drug discovery and clinical development. We are proud to back this team’s mission to cure age-related blindness.”

“Character is leveraging its multi-omics approach to move beyond the traditional one-size-fits-all approach to deliver first- and best-in-class therapies tailored to specific disease subtypes,” said Jamie Kasuboski, PhD, Partner, Luma Group. “Character’s patient-first approach is unique in its ability to identify those who are most likely to benefit from therapy, and we look forward to seeing the clinical impact of this approach with the use of proceeds from this financing.”

The Series B funding will support Phase 1 and Phase 2 proof-of-concept studies for CTX203 and CTX114, as well as the expansion of Character Bio’s pipeline into additional ophthalmic diseases. In January 2025, Character Bio announced a collaboration with Bausch + Lomb, which includes an upfront payment, with potential downstream development and sales-based milestones and royalties for novel therapeutics targeting AMD.

About Character Biosciences

Character Biosciences is a precision medicine company developing targeted therapies for progressive polygenic diseases, starting with ophthalmology. By integrating genomics, deep clinical data, and AI-driven modeling, Character Bio identifies disease drivers to improve the success rate of drug development. The company is advancing a pipeline focused on dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) to address significant unmet medical needs. For more information, visit www.characterbio.com.

Contacts

Media Contact
Kimberly Ha
KKH Advisors
917-291-5744
kimberly.ha@kkhadvisors.com

(c)2025 Business Wire, Inc., All rights reserved.


Venture Capital
Business Wire, Character Biosciences, Jersey City, New Jersey, Venture Capital

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Kimberly-Clark Corporation, one of the world's leading manufacturers of personal care and hygiene products, will establish an $800 million advanced manufacturing facility in Trumbull County, bringing an anticipated 491 new high-quality jobs. For Kimberly-Clark, this new facility would be its first in Ohio and represents not just a strategic expansion, but a decisive step in doubling down on growth in the American market. Spread across more than one million square feet, the Warren facility will provide the manufacturing capacity needed to unleash future growth for Kimberly-Clark’s fastest-growing personal care categories that include Baby & Child Care and Adult & Feminine Care. Warren is in geographic proximity to roughly 117 million consumers and will serve as a strategic hub for the Northeast and Midwest regions. Construction is expected to begin this month and will take up to two years.

In a statement Tamera Fenske, chief supply chain officer at Kimberly-Clark said, “Our investment in Warren is a pivotal step forward in our North America business and strategy.” “By establishing a new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Ohio, we’re enhancing our ability to serve millions of consumers across the Midwest and Northeast with greater speed, agility, and resilience. It’s a once-in-a-career opportunity to build a facility from the ground up that reflects the future of manufacturing, and with the support of local partners like JobsOhio, the Department of Development, Lake to River, Western Reserve Port Authority, and local governments, we have the unique opportunity to create high-quality jobs and long-term economic impact in the region.”

Based in Dallas and employing 46,000 people in 34 countries, the company’s portfolio of brands also includes Huggies, Kleenex, Scott, Kotex, Cottonelle, Poise, Depend, Andrex, Pull-Ups, GoodNites, Intimus, Plenitud, Sweety, Softex, Viva and WypAll. Its products are sold in more than 175 countries and territories.
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Snorkel AI announced general availability of two new product offerings on the Snorkel AI Data Development Platform: Snorkel Evaluate and Snorkel Expert Data-as-a-Service. These launches advance its mission to turn knowledge into specialized AI—helping teams move from prototype to production at scale by leveraging Snorkel AI’s programmatic data development technology. In addition, Snorkel AI announced it has raised $100 million in Series D funding at a $1.3 billion valuation, led by Addition. This new funding will fuel continued research and innovation in evaluating and tuning specialized AI systems with expert data.


In a statement Alex Ratner, Co-founder and CEO of Snorkel AI said, “We are seeing a surge of momentum around agentic AI, but specialized enterprise agents aren’t ready for production in most settings.” “Enterprises need domain-specific data and expertise to make this a reality. We’re excited to deliver on this need and help AI innovators develop expert data to bring their LLM and agentic systems into production with our new offerings, which round out Snorkel’s unified AI data development stack.”

Snorkel AI is building the Snorkel AI Data Development Platform for evaluating and tuning specialized AI at scale. Snorkel AI’s offerings, including Snorkel Evaluate and Snorkel Expert Data-as-a-Service, accelerate evaluation and tuning of specialized AI systems with expert data—helping teams move from prototype to production at scale by leveraging Snorkel AI’s programmatic data development technology. Launched out of the Stanford AI Lab, Snorkel AI’s platform is used in production by Fortune 500 companies, including BNY, Wayfair, and Chubb, as well as across the U.S. federal government, including the U.S. Air Force.
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TicketManager, a global leader in event ticket and guest management solutions for the corporate enterprise, today announced Valeas Capital Partners, a growth-oriented private-equity firm, has acquired a majority stake in the company. Under the terms of the agreement, Valeas is committing $110 million to support TicketManager’s strategic growth plans. TicketManager Co-Founder and CEO Tony Knopp and COO Ken Hanscom will retain a minority interest in the Company. Founded in 2007, TicketManager is the category leader in providing software and services to manage end-to-end event ticket workflow and guest experiences. Serving as the central hub and system of record for data-driven organizations, the platform streamlines every step of the ticket management process. Every year, companies spend more than $600 billion on customer entertainment, yet 43% of corporate tickets are never used and fewer than 20% of organizations leverage modern software to optimize those investments and mitigate compliance risk.

In a statement Tony Knopp, CEO and Co-Founder of TicketManager said, “Live events are an important investment for businesses of all sizes. Whether major global sponsorships, naming rights for stadiums, luxury suites or even a few season tickets for the local team, companies use them to attract and keep customers while building their brands. But in today’s market, many companies struggle with growing pressure to show the value of their ticket spending.” “We knew there was a better way, and that’s why we created TicketManager – to make company tickets easy and prove the return on investment with cutting edge technology and services.”

TicketManager is a leading event- and guest-management platform that empowers companies to make client entertainment easy and drive greater return on investment. It offers convenient and simple technology to manage corporate sports and entertainment tickets, create exceptional guest life-cycle experiences, and measure effectiveness. TicketManager is trusted by more than 500 global brands including Verizon, FedEx, Adidas, Anheuser-Busch, and Mastercard.
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