Cellular Bioengineering Inc., a Hawaii based accelerator with a focus toward biomedical applications is raising $4 million, of which it has already raised $2 million, according to a regulatory filing.

EyeGenix, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cellular Bioengineering holds the exclusive license to a biosynthetic artificial corneal material for transplantation. The company is currently trying to develop a polymer corneal substitute that can help in tissue regeneration to replace the need for cornea transplant. That will be aimed at the estimated that 10 million patients who suffer from corneal blindness, the vast majority of whom do not get corneal transplants because there is an acute shortage of donors.

The company is aiming to expand clinical trials of the product and is “completing certified manufacturing facilities for large scale clinical production, both for use in the next set of clinical trials and for eventual global patient use,” according to the company’s website.

Cellular Bioengineering and its sister company SKAI Ventures are led by Hank C.K. Wuh, a surgeon, inventor and entrepreneur with a bachelors from Johns Hopkins, a masters in public health from Harvard and was the chief resident of orthopedic surgery at Stanford Medical Center. 

-- By Arundhati Parmar, Senior Editor, MD+DI
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