Jessica Pan, Radiance Therapeutics - Beta Radiation Therapy for Glaucoma Patients | LSI Europe '24

Jessica Pan 00:00
Jessica, good morning, everyone. My name is Jessica Pan. If we haven't had the pleasure to meet yet, I just want to thank the organizers for all their hard work, and thank you all for being here. So, Radiance Therapeutics is commercializing a medical device that provides beta radiation for glaucoma surgery to prevent post-surgical scarring. But before I get into what we're doing at Radiance, I would like to tell you a short story about Joe. Joe immigrated from Taiwan to the US in the early 90s to pursue his master's at Georgia Tech. His career in technology took him and his family to many places around the world. When Joe was in his late 50s, he was diagnosed with glaucoma, marking the beginning of a challenging journey filled with countless eye drops and laser treatments. Two years ago, Joe underwent his first glaucoma surgery, and unfortunately, in February of this year, he had to undergo his second surgery due to continued peripheral vision loss. Joe is my father, and the reason why I'm here today. I have experienced, firsthand, the profound unmet needs that glaucoma patients endure. At Radiance, we are committed to bringing innovative solutions to fight for patients like my father, and I invite you to join us on this mission to bring hope to those who need it most.

So why glaucoma? The cause is thought to be, well, first, it's an irreversible disease with no cure. The cause is thought to be due to high intraocular pressure, which causes damage to the optic nerve. It's a silent thief; 50% of patients don't even realize that they have glaucoma, and the current treatment is to reduce the intraocular pressure to arrest the progression of the disease. It's a significant clinical unmet need. 48.2 million patients are diagnosed worldwide, and 120,000 patients in the US this year will go blind. This also means it causes our healthcare system a significant economic burden of $5.8 billion in direct costs and $2.9 billion in indirect costs.

So what problem is Radiance solving for? Our current product is for our moderate to severe glaucoma patients. These patients undergo two types of surgical interventions. The first type is a trabeculectomy, where a scalpel is used to create what we call a bleb, and that's basically to alleviate pressure. The other surgical intervention uses a tube or shunt to alleviate that pressure instead of using a scalpel. So we are an adjunctive therapy to the actual surgical intervention. The surgical intervention itself is effective in lowering IOP, but the issue is in the long term, the post-surgical complications. At three years, almost 50% of patients fail their surgery.

So why us, right? First and foremost, our predicate device is currently used every Thursday by Sir Panka and Moorfields Eye Hospital. And for those of us that are not in ophthalmology, Moorfields Eye Hospital is the biggest eye hospital in the West, and it's also a leading ophthalmology institution. I was privileged enough this summer to actually go to London and watch beta radiation in action, and I took some of these photos in the OR that I'm sharing today. This first image is how they're handling beta radiation in the operating room. The point here is to show that because of its low dose rate properties, our nurses here in the OR don't have to wear extra protective equipment when they're handling beta radiation. This is the current predicate device being used right now. It's been used at Moorfields for the past 20 years, and that's why it is outdated technology; it requires surgical tweezers to place the plaque onto the incision site, and it's placed there for over six minutes.

So we are a novel, transformative therapy that's superior to the standard of care. We're supported by four randomized control trials, and we're a one-and-done solution for all glaucoma drainage surgeries. We already have our regulatory approval; we are 510(k) approved, and our core patents are also approved. We're in active discussions with financial sponsors and strategics. So we are commercializing an existing, proven technology already in demand by our surgeons. The radio nucleotide brachytherapy source delivers beta radiation using strontium-90. It's a topical application, it's quick, it's only 30 seconds, and it's easy to use and intuitive.

So we are a unique company at our size because we already have four published randomized control trials involving the legacy device, and due to time, I'm just going to go through two of them with you today. So this first study is Curran et al. It's 320 patients. This is proving the efficacy of beta versus placebo. What we can see here in this Kaplan-Meier survival curve is that at three years, patients who received the placebo, which is the blue line, fail their surgery compared to our beta radiation arm in the red line. The second study shows our superiority to the standard of care. The current standard of care is a compound called Mitomycin C; it's an oncology drug, and it's in liquid form. It needs to be painted over the eye and then thoroughly washed before the incision. That's because, as a toxic drug, if it reaches the back of the eye onto a structure called the retina, it can cause blindness.

In this study with Cook et al., there are 117 patients, and we see here in this randomized control trial that patients in the beta therapy arm were more likely to have a functioning drainage reservoir, more likely to achieve lower IOP at one year, and less likely to have additional medical treatment after surgery. So there are many reasons why we're superior to Mitomycin C, the current standard of care I talked about. We're an easy and quick topical application, we're precise, we deliver a consistent dose, and there's no intraoperative exposure to toxic oncology drugs like Mitomycin C. Lastly, we're an effective scar prophylaxis.

So why now? Glaucoma is a significant and growing market driven mostly by innovation in the device sector. In 2023, 1.1 million glaucoma surgeries were performed globally, and 44% of these procedures utilize Mitomycin C. For those of us who aren't in ophthalmology, there is a company called Market Scope, and they're the premier industry report in ophthalmology. We had them commission this report to look at the global Mitomycin C procedures. In 2023, it was estimated to be 479,000, and this is projected to grow to 727,000 in 2028. This means that the compound annual growth rate is 8.7%. Our business model is razor-razor blade.

Regarding reimbursement, I know that's a big discussion point for all of us in the venture ecosystem, and so we recently commissioned a comprehensive reimbursement assessment. We are confident that we have pathways for robust reimbursement upon commercialization. Our first strategy will be to use the existing codes as we build out the new codes for our technology.

So where are we in funding? We have a convertible note right now that's open for $1 to $2 million, and we are on our way to our Series B for $25 million. And who are we? We are very fortunate to have prominent founders, executives, and advisors in our group. Most notably, I want to call out Sir Panka right here and Dr. Ian Murdock from Moorfields Eye Hospital. They're our founders, and they were actually knighted by the Queen for their work in preventing blindness. Also, Dr. Laurence Marsteller, our CEO, who has already had an ophthalmic exit; his previous company was in beta radiation for wet AMD. We also have influential KOLs who are thought leaders in the glaucoma community: Dr. Kuldev Singh from Stanford University and Dr. Ike Ahmed from the University of Toronto.

So Radiance is poised to deliver successful outcomes for both patients and our investors. We are solving the leading cause of blindness, backed by world-leading glaucoma specialists, replacing the current standard of care with four randomized control trials, and we are a de-risked investment because we are already FDA approved and our core patents are issued. Thank you so much for hearing about Radiance, and thank you to my dad for allowing me to share his story.