DiscGenics, Inc. ( https://www.discgenics.com/ ), a clinical stage 
biopharmaceutical company developing regenerative cell-based therapies that 
alleviate pain and restore function in patients with degenerative diseases of 
the spine, today announced it has raised $50 million in a Series C funding 
round led by Ci:z Investment LLP with participation from new investors, Eagle 
Fund SP1 LLP, Medical Incubator Japan (MIJ), and CareNet of Japan. Major 
follow-on investments from Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co. Ltd, the Company's Board 
of Directors, and existing long-term investors contributed to the 
oversubscription of the round. This latest round of funding brings investment 
in the Company to just over $71 million to-date.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/561675/DiscGenics_Logo.jpg 

DiscGenics will use the new capital to support ongoing clinical trials of its 
injectable Discogenic Cell Therapy (IDCT) for lumbar degenerative disc disease 
(DDD), to fund future commercialization activities in the U.S. and Japan, and 
for the scale up and scale out of its allogeneic cell manufacturing facility in 
Salt Lake City, UT. 

"We are extremely pleased and humbled by the interest and support we have 
received in this round of funding," said Flagg Flanagan, Chief Executive 
Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors for DiscGenics. "I would like to 
sincerely thank the team at DiscGenics for their tremendous efficiency over the 
past several years in the use of our resources and capital to achieve clinical 
capacity on two continents while building out our manufacturing facility in 
preparation for anticipated commercial demand of our product."

Concurrent with this investment, DiscGenics has added two new members to its 
Board of Directors.

Colin Lee Novick is a cofounder and managing director of one of Japan's leading 
regenerative medicine consulting firms, CJ PARTNERS, and was selected by Dr. 
Yoshinori Shirono, founder of Ci:z Investment LLP, the lead Series C investor, 
to represent his interests on the DiscGenics Board. Mr. Novick stated: "DDD 
represents a significant unmet medical need worldwide and is an increasingly 
prevalent chronic disease among Japan's rapidly aging population. DiscGenics 
has developed an innovative biologic approach to treating this condition that 
both meshes well with the Japanese regulatory focus on regenerative medicines 
and could very much revolutionize the way chronic low back pain is treated. I 
am honored to be joining the DiscGenics board to support their clinical and 
commercial endeavors."

Najeeb Thomas, M.D. is an internationally recognized neurosurgeon who practices 
at Southern Brain and Spine in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he focuses on 
treatment of degenerative diseases of the spine. Dr. Thomas stated: "I have 
been an investor and supporter of DiscGenics for several years and believe that 
IDCT represents a truly game changing opportunity for the treatment of patients 
with DDD. If IDCT generates similar outcomes in human trials to the preclinical 
studies, which included reduced inflammation of the intervertebral disc and 
restoration of disc height, I believe the end result could be reduced pain and 
disability, which subsequently translates to decreased pain medication usage 
and ultimately to fewer surgical interventions."

DiscGenics is conducting two concurrent regulator-allowed, prospective, 
randomized, double-blinded, controlled, multicenter clinical trials in the U.S. 
(https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03347708 )and Japan ( 
https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2898376-1&h=1676913124&u=https%3A%2F%2Fclinicaltrials.gov%2Fct2%2Fshow%2FNCT03955315&a=Japan 
)to evaluate the safety and efficacy of IDCT in subjects with symptomatic, 
single-level, mild to moderate lumbar DDD. In the U.S., all 60 subjects have 
been treated ( 
https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2898376-1&h=186196820&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.discgenics.com%2Fnews-posts%2F2020%2F3%2F3%2Fdiscgenics-announces-completion-of-enrollment-in-us-phase-12-clinical-trial-of-discogenic-cell-therapy-for-degenerative-disc-disease&a=60+subjects+have+been+treated 
) and no safety issues have been reported ( 
https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2898376-1&h=3122076304&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.discgenics.com%2Fnews-posts%2F2019%2F10%2F28%2Fdiscgenics-announces-us-clinical-study-of-cell-therapy-for-disc-degeneration-clears-final-planned-safety-review&a=no+safety+issues+have+been+reported 
). In Japan, IDCT passed the initial planned safety review ( 
https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2898376-1&h=3579601452&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.discgenics.com%2Fnews-posts%2F2020%2F1%2F6%2Fjapanese-clinical-study-of-discgenics-cell-therapy-for-disc-degeneration-passes-initial-safety-review&a=IDCT+passed+the+initial+planned+safety+review 
) and trial enrollment is ongoing.  

About Degenerative Disc Disease

Degenerative disc disease (DDD) is a chronic condition that is characterized by 
inflammation and breakdown of extracellular matrix within the intervertebral 
disc. DDD often results in chronic low back pain, which is a leading cause of 
disability worldwide (1) and is the most common non-cancer reason for opioid 
prescription in the U.S. (2). Each year, 266 million individuals (3.63%) 
worldwide are diagnosed with lumbar DDD (3). The condition affects more than 24 
million individuals in the U.S. and Canada (3), and is estimated to cost the 
U.S. healthcare system over $100 billion each year (1), creating a significant 
burden on the economy and individual patients. In Japan, epidemiological 
studies have indicated that there could be more than 30 million patients 
suffering from spinal disorders in the country, (4) with approximately 160,000 
patients needing lumbar spine surgical intervention each year (5).

About DiscGenics

DiscGenics is a privately held, clinical stage biopharmaceutical company 
focused on developing regenerative cell-based therapies that alleviate pain and 
restore function in patients with degenerative diseases of the spine. As the 
only company in the world to develop an allogeneic cell therapy derived from 
intervertebral disc cells to treat diseases of the disc, DiscGenics believes it 
has a unique opportunity to harness the restorative potential of the human body 
to heal millions of patients suffering from the debilitating effects of back 
pain. DiscGenics' first product candidate, IDCT, is a homologous, allogeneic, 
injectable cell therapy that utilizes biomedically engineered progenitor cells 
derived from intervertebral disc tissue, known as Discogenic Cells, to offer a 
non-surgical, potentially regenerative solution for the treatment of patients 
with mild to moderate degenerative disc disease. For more information, visit 
www.discgenics.com. 

References 

1. Hoy, D., March, L., Brooks, P., et al. The global burden of low back pain: 
estimates from the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study. Ann Rheum Dis. 
2014;73(6):968-974. 
2. Ringwalt, C., Gugelmann, H., Garrettson, M., et al. Differential prescribing 
of opioid analgesics according to physician specialty for Medicaid patients 
with chronic noncancer pain diagnoses. Pain Res Manag. 2014;19(4):179-185. 
3. Ravindra, V.M., Senglaub, S.S., Rattani, A., et al. Degenerative lumbar 
spine disease: Estimating global incidence and worldwide volume. Global Spine 
J. 2018;8(8):784-794. 
4. Yoshimura N, Muraki S, Oka H, et al. Prevalence of knee osteoarthritis, 
lumbar spondylosis, and osteoporosis in Japanese men and women: the research on 
osteoarthritis/osteoporosis against disability study. J Bone Miner Metab. 
2009;27(5):620-628. 
5. Yano Research Institute. Medical Bionics (Artificial Organs) Market 2019 
report. March 2020. 
https://www.yanoresearch.com/market_reports/C61118800?class_english_code=9.  

SOURCE: DiscGenics, Inc.

CONTACT: Lindsey Saxon, lindsey@discgenics.com; or Colin Lee Novick (Japan), 
colin.lee.novick@cj-partners.com