Atsena Therapeutics, a Durham-based biotechnology company, has raised $24.5 million from investors, according to a filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The money came from 10 different investors, and the company said in the filing that it would like to raise a total of $32 million.
It December 2020, the company raised $27.5 million from 11 investors. And in May 2020, it raised just more than $4 million.
Its investors include Hatteras Venture Partners, Lightstone Ventures and Sofinnova Investments.
Atsena is a clinical-stage gene therapy company developing novel treatments for inherited forms of blindness. The company has two drugs in clinical trials.
It was founded by ocular gene therapy pioneers Dr. Shannon Boye and Sanford Boye of the University of Florida. Sanford Boye serves as the company’s chief technology officer.
Patrick Ritschel is the chief executive officer. He founded multiple biotechnology companies, including Torque Bio, a circular RNA company, and StrideBio, an AAV gene therapy company where he also served as president for several years.
He was an angel investor and played an instrumental role in the formation of Chapel Hill-based gene therapy company Bamboo Therapeutics, which was acquired by Pfizer in a 2016 transaction valued at nearly $700 million in 2016.