Jersey City, New Jersey - Sep 17, 2025 (UTC) - Character Biosciences, a precision medicine company transforming drug development for polygenic diseases, today announced the expansion of its leadership team with four senior appointments and an expansion of its Series B financing, bringing total capital raised in the round to more than $110 million. The additional close included participation from Sanofi Ventures, as well as new and existing investors.
The company announced four key leadership appointments: Robert Kim, M.D., MBA as Chief Medical Officer, Daniel Elgort, Ph.D. as Chief Data & Analytics Officer, Josh Buddle as Head of Clinical Network and Longitudinal Research, and Jessamyn Wead as Head of People. These appointments come as Character Biosciences advances its pipeline of precision therapies for degenerative eye diseases, particularly age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
The Series B extension builds on the company’s initial $93 million Series B round completed in March 2025, which was co-led by aMoon and Luma Group. The original funding enabled Character Biosciences to advance its lead candidates CTX114 and CTX203 for AMD toward clinical trials. The company is developing targeted therapies by leveraging human genetics to understand disease progression drivers and create more effective treatments for patients.
Character Biosciences is utilizing a data-driven approach to reclassify common diseases based on their underlying genetic architecture, starting with ophthalmology applications. The company’s precision medicine platform integrates genomics and data science to develop targeted treatments for progressive polygenic diseases. Age-related macular degeneration impacts one in eight people over age fifty and is a leading cause of blindness globally.
In January 2025, Character Biosciences announced a collaboration with Bausch + Lomb, which includes an upfront payment with potential downstream development and sales-based milestones and royalties for novel therapeutics targeting AMD. The partnership demonstrates the commercial validation of Character Biosciences’ precision medicine approach to treating degenerative eye diseases.
The Jersey City-based company was founded by entrepreneurs focused on leveraging human genetics and data science to transform drug development. The latest funding will support Phase 1 and Phase 2 proof-of-concept studies for the company’s lead programs, as well as expansion of Character Biosciences’ pipeline into additional ophthalmic diseases.
About Character Biosciences
Character Biosciences is a precision medicine company developing targeted therapies for progressive polygenic diseases, starting with ophthalmology. By integrating genomics and data science, the company aims to reclassify diseases based on their underlying genetic architecture to develop more effective, targeted treatments. The company is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, and is focused on transforming drug development for degenerative eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration. Character Biosciences was founded to leverage human genetics to understand what drives disease progression and discover targeted therapies to more effectively treat patients. Learn more at www.characterbio.com.
