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The population is getting older and older each year and as a result the eye diseases, you know, develop.
There are two major diseases to cause blindness of the eye. One is glaucoma and one is dry AMD.
There is no drug, not a single drug approved by the FDA for the treatment of dry AMD
MacuClear is a technology that is attempting to develop a drug to stop the progression of dry age-related macular degeneration.
MacuClear's drug MC-1101 is in the lead. All other compounds that have been attemped at this point
have actually failed in clinical trials so far. We're the only ones that are in Phase 3 clinical trials at this time.
When we first started this company we thought that
with an IND an initial human clinical trials that a big pharma partner would take us on.
But the game has changed and they're now all looking for efficacy so that's why we have
been aggressively going after this Phase 3 trail to show efficacy.
I spent a lot of time trying to promote the technology to pharma companies, biotech companies
that we hoped would just license the technology and go forward.
Kept getting the same response - very interesting intriguing possibility as a treatment for AIDS related macular degeneration
but in actuality you have about eight rat samples and we'd have to see some human trials before we'd be interested in this.
When the OTC was able to begin forming companies and giving these companies a chance to go through that
development step that other final partner companies had to have in order to be interested, MacuClear was the perfect fit.
We were if not the first, one of the first of a new paradigm where the OTC took a large
position, an equity position in the company.
In doing that they facilitated the licensing, the basic formation of the company, you know, legally and so on.
And it facilitated getting out there with the technology and being able to raise money.
They have supported us by providing a board member
and just continued support throughout the whole process to date.