Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur and private investor Brian Frenzel has extensive experience founding and financing life sciences companies. Currently, Brian Frenzel is an advisor to and an investor in SanBio Inc., a company that is developing cell therapy products to treat patients with neurodegenerative diseases.
In September 2019, SanBio announced it had reached a partnership with National University Corporation Asahikawa Medical University in Japan for the joint development of SB623, a promising treatment for retinal diseases like macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa.
Retinal diseases are severe conditions that can cause vision loss. Macular degeneration arising from age-related malfunctioning of the macula in the middle of the eye is actually the number one cause of sight loss in the United States and Europe. Its incidence rates have also gone up considerably in Japan with 690,000 people estimated to have been suffering from it in 2011.
SanBio’s SB623 has previously been clinically tested as a treatment for cerebral stroke and traumatic brain injury disability. The proprietary treatment involves implanting genetically modified cultured bone-marrow mesenchymal stem cells to impacted nerve tissue in the brain, triggering natural regeneration and recovery of lost motor function.
SB623 has been undergoing Phase 2 clinical trials for stroke and traumatic brain injury in both the United States and Japan. The partnership with Asahikawa Medical University will allow SanBio to gather the data it requires to pursue a third indication, as a treatment for retinal diseases.
Brian Frenzel 
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