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OccuRx Pty Ltd is a start-up company from the University of Melbourne that is developing new drugs that treat the cause of blindness that occurs in some diabetics. Diabetic eye disease includes the development of diabetic retinopathy, cataract (clouding of the lens) and glaucoma (increase ocular fluid pressure leading to optic nerve damage), which can cause severe vision loss and blindness. Diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of new blindness in persons aged 25-74 in the United States and approximately 700,000 persons in the US have proliferative diabetic retinopathy, with an annual incidence of 65,000. Current treatments cannot restore lost vision and there is a need for new treatments that can control the disease. OccuRx’s lead compounds have been shown to be effective in animal models of fibrosis and diabetic eye disease and the company is progressing its lead drug into phase 1 clinical trials.