SeaBeLife has appointed Professor Eric Souied, a leading authority on age-related macular degeneration (AMD), to its scientific committee as the French biotech advances a dual-pathway strategy targeting retinal degeneration.
Souied, head of ophthalmology at the Intercommunal Hospital of Créteil and Henri Mondor Hospital, will help steer the company’s ophthalmology program, which focuses on simultaneously inhibiting necroptosis and ferroptosis – two regulated cell death pathways increasingly implicated in retinal disease. The company claims its platform is the only one currently designed to address both mechanisms in tandem.
“The arrival of Professor Eric Souied marks a crucial step for SeaBeLife, and we are very grateful to him for agreeing to become a member of our scientific committee,” said SeaBeLife’s co-founder and CEO, Morgane Rousselot. “His unparalleled international expertise in the field of AMD and the mechanistic vision of retinal degeneration processes consolidate our program’s sound scientific base, particularly in the key roles of ferroptosis, oxidative stress, necroptosis and the association of inflammation with geographic atrophy.”
An international expert in AMD, maculopathies and retinal surgery, Souied has authored more than 650 scientific publications and in 1998 identified the first genetic polymorphism associated with AMD. He will advise SeaBeLife on the mechanistic underpinnings of retinal degeneration, the role of lipid metabolism and oxidative stress in AMD, and on clinical positioning — including early-stage disease and geographic atrophy (GA). He will also contribute to regulatory strategy and trial design.
SeaBeLife’s lead ophthalmic candidate, SBL03, recently generated preclinical efficacy data in GA, an advanced form of dry AMD characteriszed by progressive loss of retinal pigment epithelium and photoreceptors. GA affects an estimated eight million people worldwide, a figure projected to rise to 10 million by 2040. Treatment options in Europe remain limited.
The company, founded in 2019 and backed by €9 million in funding, is positioning its small-molecule platform as a disease-modifying approach aimed at the underlying drivers of degeneration rather than downstream pathology.
Source: Andrew Lloyd & Associates.
