Beacon Therapeutics Secures $120M for Next-Gen Retinal Gene Therapy

Syncona is investing $120 million in Beacon Therapeutics, a retinal gene therapy startup led by former executives of Syncona-backed companies Nightstar Therapeutics and Gyroscope Therapeutics, to bankroll late-stage work on a gene therapy for X-linked retinitis pigmentosa (XL-RP), a rare genetic disease that leads to blindness, predominantly in young men. Some members of the Beacon team had previously worked on a gene therapy for XL-RP as Nightstar, which was acquired by Biogen in 2019, but that therapy never moved past a Phase II/III trial.