Venture capital investors in TCD campus company Genable Technologies have secured an exit from the loss-making firm through the sale of the business to Nasdaq-quoted Spark Therapeutics.

As of February 2015, Genable had capital invested of €6.75m. The two VCs involved were Delta Partners and Fountain Healthcare Partners. In 2011, Delta invested €750,000 and Fountain Healthcare €1,750,000. They followed on in 2014 with Fountain investing €1,050,000 and Delta investing €450,000.

Other investors included Fighting Blindness Ireland, Foundation Fighting Blindness Clinical Research Institute in the US, Trinity College Dublin and Enterprise Ireland.

Genable Technologies had accumulated losses of €7.8m in February 2015, after recording a loss of €2.2m in 2014/15.

Genable's RhoNova is a potential treatment targeting rhodopsin-linked autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa, an IRD that routinely leads to visual impairment and in the most severe cases to blindness.

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Using an adeno-associated virus vector developed and manufactured at Spark, RhoNova is designed to suppress the expression of a faulty gene and deliver normal copies of the RHO gene to restore normal expression.

There is currently no approved pharmacologic treatment for RHO-adRP, which affects an estimated 12,000 patients in the United States and the five major European markets.

RhoNova has been granted Orphan Drug Designation in the US and Europe in addition to the Advanced Therapy Medicinal Product designation from the European Medicines Agency.

Genable’s principals are Jane Farrar, Paul Kenna, Alan Boyd and John Monahan. The company was established in 1998.

Spark Therapeutics, which has a market cap of €800m, is paying €5.5m cash and 265,000 Spark shares, currently valued at around €8.2m, to buy Genable. Additional financial terms were not disclosed.

Photo: Genable’s Paul Kenna with Ena Prosser (centre) of Fountain Healthcare Partners and Prof. Jane Farrar. (Pic: Nick Bradshaw)