Opthea Secures $170 Million Financing and $90 Million Private Placement

Singapore – August 23, 2022 – Cooley advised Opthea, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapies to treat highly prevalent and progressive retinal diseases, on its non-dilutive financing arrangement for up to $170 million with Launch Therapeutics (Launch Tx), a recently formed development company backed by funds managed by global investment firm Carlyle and its life sciences franchise Abingworth. The firm also advised on Opthea’s concurrent $90 million private institutional placement and share purchase plan. Lawyers Milson Yu, Ellie Guadiana, Tim Pitrelli, Mischi a Marca and Ferish Patel led the Cooley team advising Opthea.

Cooley previously advised Opthea on its $128 million initial public offering, which at the time marked the largest IPO conducted by a development-stage Australian life sciences company and the largest Australian biotech capital raise in a secondary Nasdaq IPO.

Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, Opthea is developing novel therapies to address an unmet need in the treatment of highly prevalent and progressive retinal diseases, including wet age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema. Opthea’s lead product candidate, OPT-302, is in pivotal phase 3 clinical trials, and to achieve broader inhibition of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) family, it is being developed for use in combination with anti-VEGF-A monotherapies, with the goal of improving overall efficacy and demonstrating superior vision gains over those achieved by inhibiting VEGF-A alone. 

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