dry-amd
(3)
Cheng Zhang
Cheng Zhang is the co-founder and CEO of Character Biosciences, a precision-medicine biotech that flips traditional drug discovery on its head by starting with patients instead of targets. Trained in mathematics and philosophy at Duke and shaped by years at UBS, Oliver Wyman, and Pfizer, Zhang built Character around a proprietary database of thousands of patients with age-related macular degeneration, combining genomics, longitudinal clinical data, retinal imaging, and machine learning to reclassify common diseases of aging into genetic subtypes. In 2025 the company raised an oversubscribed $93 million Series B to move its lead eye-disease candidates into the clinic.
Beacon Therapeutics
Beacon Therapeutics is a clinical-stage ophthalmic gene therapy company building AAV-based treatments to preserve and restore sight for people with rare and prevalent retinal diseases that cause blindness. Formed in 2023 by Syncona around the assets of Applied Genetic Technologies Corp (AGTC) and complementary science from the University of Oxford, its lead program, laru-zova (AGTC-501), is a one-time gene therapy for X-linked retinitis pigmentosa now in registrational trials, with additional programs targeting geographic atrophy (dry AMD) and cone-rod dystrophy.
Character Biosciences
Character Biosciences is a precision medicine company developing targeted therapies for progressive polygenic diseases, starting in ophthalmology with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). By pairing human genetics with longitudinal clinical and retinal imaging data from thousands of consented patients - and layering AI-enabled biomarker analysis on top - Character reclassifies broad diagnoses into genetically defined subtypes so it can design drugs that target the root drivers of disease progression. Its lead programs, CTX114 (a complement inhibitor for geographic atrophy) and CTX203 (a lipid regulator to prevent progression to advanced AMD), are advancing toward the clinic on the strength of a Series B that grew past $110 million.