Biotechnology company KalVista Pharmaceuticals has raised £8 million in a Series A financing round from life sciences venture investors Novo A/S and SV Life Sciences to develop a treatment for diabetes-related blindness.

Biotechnology company KalVista Pharmaceuticals has raised £8 million in a Series A financing round from life sciences venture investors Novo A/S and SV Life Sciences to develop a treatment for diabetes-related blindness.

The newly launched company is developing a new approach for the treatment of diabetic macular edema (DME), a leading cause of adult visual loss in developed countries, through the use of small molecule plasma kallikrein inhibitors.

KalVista researchers are in the advanced pre-clinical stages for the production of a treatment that could be administrated through intravitreal injections or orally. KalVista acquired the inhibitors and all relevant intellectual property from Vantia Therapeutics, a research and development company that is also backed by Novo A/S, SV Life Sciences and MVM Life Science Partners.

KalVista’s scientific founders include researchers in ophthalmology, diabetes and diabetes-related complications, such as Dr Lloyd Paul Aiello, a professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, and Dr Edward Feener, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Aiello, who is also director of Joslin’s Beetham Eye Institute, comments, ‘Diabetic macular edema remains one of the major challenges in ophthalmology, and is a leading cause of visual loss in the developed world. I believe KalVista’s approach, targeting a novel non-VEGF pathway, could represent a further important step in treating this condition.’

KalVista chief executive Andrew Crockett adds, ‘We have an ambitious target to become a leading company focused on the development of novel treatments for DME and believe we have the team, the expertise, the assets and the approach to achieve this goal.’

KalVista is headquartered in Southampton and has an office in Boston, United States.