RevOpsis Therapeutics, a US biopharmaceutical company involved in ophthalmic therapies, announced on Tuesday that it has received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant of more than USD1.8m from the National Eye Institute (NEI), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

This grant will fund critical research and development (R&D) activities, including multidose GMP toxicology studies in nonhuman primates, for the company's lead asset, RO-104, a first-in-class fully human modular trispecific biologic designed to address multiple pathways implicated in retinal vascular disease progression. RO-104 offers the potential to address significant unmet needs in the treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD), diabetic retinopathy (DR) and retinal vein occlusions (RVO).

These studies will enable the IND application for RO-104 in preparation for its advancement into first in human clinical trials in late 2025.

The SBIR programme is a competitive federal R&D initiative designed to support small businesses to conduct R&D with strong potential for addressing significant unmet needs and commercialisation. The grant provides RevOpsis with non-dilutive financing to accelerate its efforts to bring innovative therapies for ophthalmic diseases to market.