Ray Therapeutics has secured $125m in a Series B funding round, as the gene therapy-focused biopharma eyes a breakout on the ophthalmology market.
Through the oversubscribed round, which was led by Janus Henderson Investors and featured contributions from MSD’s (Merck & Co) venture arm, MRL Ventures Fund and Novo Holdings, Ray will fund the late-stage clinical development and commercial readiness of RTX-015.
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Ray is currently evaluating RTX-015 through the Phase I ENVISION study (NCT06460844), which is looking at the drug’s potential in patients with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a genetic disease which causes the light-sensitive cells in the retina to break down.
RTX-015 acts by delivering a light-sensitive receptor protein called a rhodopsin to surviving retinal neurons, which then repurpose into light-sensitive photoreceptors – thus effectively replacing photoreceptors lost in the eye, regardless of genetic mutations.
This differs from the approach harnessed by Spark Therapeutics’ and Novartis’ approved RP medicine, Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec), which delivers a copy of the RPE65 gene to restore the RPE65 enzyme’s function.
Ray is also planning to conduct further studies of its second asset, RTX-021, which targets retinal bipolar cells in a bid to restore vision to patients with macular conditions like Stargardt disease and geographic atrophy (GA). The drug is currently in a Phase I/II study (NCT07439887) for Stargardt, while it is in the investigational new drug (IND)-enabling phase for GA.
Cracking light onto the RP market
In 2017, Luxturna became the first and only treatment option for RP, which Foundation Fighting Blindness says impacts around 100,000 people in the US.
Now, several companies are looking to join Luxturna on this market – including developer Ocugen, which is evaluating its NR2E3-targeting gene therapy in the Phase III liMeliGhT study (NCT06388200) in RP.
Johnson & Johnson (J&J) was also previously eyeing the RP market with its acquired gene therapy, botaretigene sparoparvovec (bota-vec), but the drug failed to meet the trial’s primary endpoint of improved vision-guided mobility in a Phase III trial.
Despite its primary endpoint miss, the drug did demonstrate improvements in secondary endpoints, prompting bota-vec’s original developer, MeiraGTx, to buy back the rights to the drug from J&J for $25m in April 2026. The company now intends to pursue “immediate global regulatory filings” for the drug in X-linked RP.
According to a recent report from GlobalData, parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology, during the past 32 months (accurate in January 2026), 10 mergers and acquisitions and 10 strategic alliances involving companies developing RP assets were completed globally.
