Oculinea, Inc. Enters into Research Agreement with Trican Biotechnology Pipeline
San Francisco, California and New Taipei City, Taiwan
July 1st, 2025
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Option and license research collaboration includes candidate antibodies generated from Trican’s SERAbody platform
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Agreement will enable Oculinea to design, develop, and expand its proprietary pipeline of ophthalmology delivery devices with improved safety and tolerability compared to existing marketed products.
Oculinea, Inc. (hereinafter “Oculinea”) and Trican Biotechnology (“Trican”) based in San Francisco, Ca, and New Taipei City, Taiwan on July 1st, 2025 jointly announced a research collaboration and exclusive option and license agreement to develop a novel ophthalmology implant using antibodies from Trican.
The asset under evaluation is a bispecific antibody targeting overexpressed drivers in retinal diseases. Under the terms of the agreed upon collaboration, Oculinea will be responsible for research and development of drug-device products incorporating this antibody. Trican will support bispecific antibody generation.
Financial terms of the collaboration are not disclosed.
“We are pleased to enter into a collaboration agreement with Oculinea with its proprietary ophthalmology delivery platform,” said Sharon Wang, GM of Trican. “This agreement is the beginning with Oculinea to combine the speed and quality from our antibody discovery with biodegradable and biocompatible sustained release delivery for differentiated first and best-in class drug-devices lowering treatment burden for aging populations.”
“We are pleased to enter into a research and discovery partnership with Trican as we continue to expand our efforts to lower treatment burden for patients suffering from degenerative retinal diseases” said Robert Bhisitkul, MD PhD, Professor of Ophthalmology, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and cofounder of Oculinea. “With this partnership we look forward to evaluating and bringing innovative products into the clinic by combining Trican’s unique antibodies with Oculinea’s best in class long acting drug delivery platform,” said Murty Vyakarnam, PhD, CEO of Oculinea.
About Oculinea, Inc. Oculinea, Inc is an ocular drug delivery company with a unique zero-order drug delivery technology licensed from University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Oculinea is developing proprietary long-acting drug-device bioresorbable implants capable of delivering both small molecules and biologics based on its Miniaturized Injectable Delivery System (MIDS) platform. Oculinea is actively seeking partnerships with strategics to bring innovative products in ophthalmology for better clinical outcomes and lowering treatment burden for patients.
About Trican Biotechnology. Trican Biotechnology, founded in 2015, focuses on multispecific asset discovery and design with ex vivo SERAbodies (Sequentially Enriched Recombinant Antibodies) engineering platform from the proprietary fully-human DART (Directed Antibody Response against Tumors/lesions) library with deep somatically hypermutated affinity, diversity, specificity, and developability against targets of interest. Trican is actively partnering SERAbodies globally for internal development or external discoveries.