South Korea’s digital therapeutics startup S-Alpha raises $2.7M in seed funding for clinical trials in the U.S.

S-Alpha Therapeutics, a Seoul, South Korea-based digital therapeutics startup, has raised $2.7 million (3 billion KRW) in seed funding for early-stage development clinical trials in the US to use its digital therapeutic application for the treatment of eye disease. This seed round, which follows an initial strategic investment from LegoChem Biosciences in February 2020, was led by Hana Ventures, STIC Ventures, and others.

Founded in 2019, S-Alpha Therapeutics is a digital therapeutics startup company with platform technologies that enable digital devices to treat different diseases. S-Alpha has a pipeline of products in the areas of ophthalmology, neuropsychiatry, cancer, and immunology.

S-Alpha’s lead product, SAT-001, is currently in the process of regulatory submission to start clinical studies in Korea as a therapeutic device for treating eye disease following MFDS’s guidance in June 2020. S-Alpha also completed a successful meeting in July 2020 with the USFDA on developing SAT-001 and is preparing to launch clinical studies in the United States. S-Alpha has an extensive product pipeline and collaborates actively with academic and industry partners to develop their R&D programs.

S-Alpha actively engages with the global digital therapeutics community and presented at the Digital Therapeutics East Conference (DTx East 2020) in September 2020 as the first Korean company to be invited to the conference.

S-Alpha is also a member of DTA (DTx Alliance), a non-profit trade association of industry leaders and stakeholders engaged in the evidence-driven advancement of digital therapeutics.

Dr. Myung Joon Kim, Chief Medical Officer at S-Alpha, leading the team to secure proprietary technologies for the discovery and development of the pipeline and internalization of the technology.

“The fact that S-Alpha consists of specialists from various areas including domestic and international clinical experts, biochemistry experts, and software application development experts, collaborating to develop digital therapeutics was highly valued by the investors. S-Alpha will continue its effort to develop cutting-edge digital therapeutics in several disease areas,” Dr. Kim said.