Eli Lily, through its Lily New Ventures investment unit, has invested an undisclosed amount of series A funding in Audion Therapeutics, a company that is developing a treatment for sensorineural hearing loss.
As part of the investment, the parties also entered into a licensing agreement that gives Audion the rights to certain Lilly compounds that can be developed to potentially treat hearing loss by hair cell regeneration. Lilly has an option to reacquire these rights upon successful clinical proof of concept.
Financial terms were not disclosed. Following the investment, Shaun Hawkins, vice president of Lilly New Ventures, has become a member of Audion’s Supervisory Board.
Rolf Jan Rutten, CEO of Audion, said the investment allows the business to expand its infrastructure with a laboratory facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts and also gives it a selection of Lilly’s proprietary molecules that will push Audion’s lead programme significantly forward.
The number of people in the world with age-related hearing loss is expected to increase to 900 million by 2050, according to Audion. Among people aged 65 to 74, almost 33% suffer from hearing loss, a figure that rises to nearly 50% among people aged over 75.
“The incidence is rising rapidly among younger people as well, due to frequent exposure to excessive noise,” said Audion.
Estimates from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention place the total annual costs of hearing loss at approximately $50bn per year in the United States alone. There are currently no prescription products for a disease modifying treatment for hearing loss.