ONL Therapeutics blindness prevention drug attracts Dept of Defense attention

ONL Therapeutics is working on a drug that will help prevent retina detachment specifically and one cause of blindness in general. It’s a new technology that has caught the attention of the U.S. Dept of Defense as a way to help prevent soldiers from becoming blind after combat.The start-up spun out of the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Institute four months ago. It is developing a drug that could be injected into an eye to prevent the death of cells, retinal detachment and eventual blindness. Trauma from battle has made this a problem for the U.S. Dept of Defense.”We hope to get the drug into clinical trials within two years,” says Raili Kerppola, CEO of ONL Therapeutics. She is co-founding the start-up with Dr. David Zacks (the inventor of the technology and an associate professor of ophthalmology at U-M) and Dr. Jeffery Jamison. They are also working with Thomas Collette and the U-M Office of Tech Transfer.ONL Therapeutics was the runner up in Great Lakes Entrepreneur’s Quest’s New Business Idea category. The prize was $2,500 in seed capital. The start-up is also going after federal grants and hopes to fast track development because it’s tackling a rare ailment with no cure.”If it does work, we believe the development will be shorter than for your average drug,” Kerppola says.Source: Raili Kerppola, CEO of ONL TherapeuticsWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit’s growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.