Santen Pharmaceutical and Nerveda RetroSense have exited eye disease treatment developer RetroSense, which had raised about $12m in funding.

Pharmaceutical firm Allergan acquired the assets of RetroSense Therapeutics, a biotechnology spinout of Wayne State University backed by diagnostics company Nerveda, yesterday in a $60m all-cash deal.

Allergan could add regulatory and commercialisation milestone payments linked to RetroSense’s lead candidate, a gene therapy called RST-001 that is targeting a degenerative eye disease known as retinitis pigmentosa.

Founded in 2009, RetroSense is working on gene therapies to restore vision in patients suffering from blindness. The company exploits an approach known as…