S5G Therapeutics has received National Institutes of Health funding to continue researching and developing a preventative treatment for eye diseases such as Fuchs dystrophy, or FECD. 

University of Iowa professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences Mark Greiner said FECD affects five percent of people in the U.S. and 300 million people around the world. S5G Therapeutics has seen the need for a treatment option that delays surgery and is working to create a therapy option.

“There are zero therapeutics available to prevent patients from going blind or needing transplants, and we’re at a shortage,” UI Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences Researcher Jessica Skeie said. 

UI Senior Associate Vice President for Research Aliasger Salem said the NIH funding enables the team to continue their research in finding and developing a treatment for FECD. With no current treatment or research being done for this type of therapeutic, S5G is researching a first-of-its-kind treatment for FECD. 

“And it is creating a pathway for us to develop our technology, pursue regulatory approval, and ultimately to manufacture it at a scale where we can make it widely available,” Salem said. “It’s a building on intellectual property that was developed at the University of Iowa, filed with the University of Iowa Research Foundation and then transferred to the startup company to develop further.”

S5G became a startup business in 2021 and has since collaborated with the UI College of Pharmacy, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, UI Research Foundation, the Office of Innovation, and with many more UI and private organizations. 

Salem said the most effective way to move a therapeutic into clinical trials is to have a private entity develop the technology. 

“NIH grants to academics can help with the development of new identification of new pathways, help with the development of new therapeutics in terms of addressing those pathways,” Salem said. “But it’s really companies that can help to move it into the clinic.” 

FECD is a genetically inherited condition that works similarly to Huntington’s disease in the way it starts to appear later in life. Greiner said that over time the disease leads to small lesions on the inside of the cornea and the cells that line the inside of the cornea and endothelial cells start to die off. 

The deterioration of the cornea causes a patient’s vision to become cloudy, causes painful swelling, and can severely impair vision. 

Greiner said the most common genetic defect of FECD can occur earlier and become more severe with each successive generation. The issue of FECD is important to recognize because of the way it continues to progress in an individual and in their family.  

S5G and their research started with identifying the need for a FECD treatment outside of surgery. Skeie said the team has collaborated with several other UI departments to determine biomarkers, therapeutic strategies for corneal diseases, and develop the therapeutics. S5G’s collaboration with experts in pharmaceutical development and in ophthalmology has contributed to the research’s progress. 

“So we have a footprint in two departments,” Skeie said. “You have Dr. Salem and Dr. Greiner, and so our students that really do most of the work here are on both sides of that fence.” 

While working on this research there have been several challenges. Skeie said there have been challenges along the way with understanding why there are no other options, how the disease progresses, identifying a therapy, and formulating a therapy that can target the source of the issue. 

Another major challenge has been how to incorporate ubiquinol, a molecule that can help the cells in the cornea, into an eye drop because it is not water soluble. 

“Every stage is a big challenge, and it’s only through this highly collaborative, interdisciplinary approach with deep expertise of corneal disease and pharmaceutical formulation expertise that you are able to overcome these challenges collectively,” Skeie said. 

Despite the difficulties, there has been support from patients and other organizations. Greiner said many of his patients have been more than willing to participate in research due to FECD being a genetic disease that will likely affect their children and family. 

“This research has been made possible because our patients have elected to participate in research studies that have helped us generate more than a decade’s worth of a bio repository of biological tissue and samples,” Greiner said.