Lineage Cell Therapeutics has found an experienced hearing loss partner to advance a potentially novel transplant for auditory neurons.
William Demant Invest, the largest shareholder of Danish hearing aid manufacturer Demant, has earmarked up to $12 million to support preclinical development of Lineage’s ReSonance (ANP1) cell therapy, Lineage announced in an Aug. 26 release.
Through the collaboration, Lineage will partner with the Eriksholm Research Centre, a part of Demant subsidiary Oticon, to conduct research in support of an investigational new drug application for ReSonance.
This includes work on cell manufacturing, proof-of-concept studies, translational models and regulatory strategies, according to the release.
“ReSonance is our first internally-developed cell transplant program and highlights the efficiency and breadth of our technology platform,” Lineage CEO Brian Culley said in the release. “This partnership will allow us to integrate the hearing loss research expertise of Eriksholm Research Centre with the manufacturing and cell transplant expertise of the Lineage team to explore the potential of a differentiated cell transplant, and position this therapy for initial clinical development.”
The research aims to address hearing loss that is caused by damage to auditory nerve cells, which are responsible for transmitting sounds from the inner ear to the brain. Patients with this kind of hearing loss, called auditory neuropathy, can sometimes benefit from hearing aids or cochlear implants, but not always.
Lineage’s ReSonance cell therapy is designed to transplant off-the-shelf auditory neurons into patients’ cochleas to restore hearing.
California-based Lineage’s lead program is OpRegen, a transplant of retinal pigment epithelial cells into the eye for the treatment of geographic atrophy secondary to age-related macular degeneration. Roche’s Genentech took over development of OpRegen after striking a deal in 2021 worth as much as $670 million, and it's now conducting a phase 2 study of the therapy.
Lineage’s other clinical-stage program, OPC1, is being tested for spinal cord injuries and involves transplanting oligodendrocyte progenitor cells, which develop into the protective myelin sheath that surrounds nerves. The cell transplant outfit started a new study of OPC1 in February 2025, and past clinical work has been partially funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.