Here's a look at some of the latest news regarding ophthalmic drugs and therapies from the past week.
- Earlier today, pSivida Corp. announced the results from an investigator-sponsored Phase 2 study of pSivida's Medidur showed no recurrence of uveitis in 11 eyes treated with Medidur during the two years following implantation, while six of 10 fellow eyes without Medidur experienced recurrence. Additionally, all Medidur-treated eyes had a significant improvement in mean visual acuity compared to baseline throughout the two years, and mean visual acuity showed successive improvement at two years over one year.
- Clinical stage biopharma company Horama reported it has raised €4 million with Omnes Capital, Sham Innovation Santé and GO Capital that will support the development of two gene therapy products — HORA-PDE6B for retinitis pigmentosa that is planning to enroll its first patient in Q1 2017 and HORA-RLPB1 for PA or retinitis punctuata albescens that is currently at preclinical stage.
- Earlier this week, Inotek Pharmaceuticals Corporation reported it was initiating a Phase 2 dose-ranging trial of a fixed-dose combination (FDC) of trabodenoson — a novel treatment for glaucoma — and latanoprost. The trial will reportedly assess the overall benefit/risk profile of binocular topical application of different daily doses of trabodenoson (3.0% and 6.0%) when combined with latanoprost (0.005% or 0.0025%) for eight weeks in patients with ocular hypertension or primary open-angle glaucoma.
- Adverum Biotechnologies, Inc. recently announced plans to continue to move forward with preclinical development of its anti-VEGF wet AMD gene therapy candidates after analyzing promising pre-clinical data evaluating different compounds in recently completed non-human primate studies.
- Eleven Biotherapeutics, Inc. recently announced its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for EBI-031, a humanized monoclonal antibody that potently binds interleukin-6 (IL-6) and inhibits all known forms of IL-6 cytokine signaling, for treatment of ocular diseases, has become effective.
- Dr. Susan Quaggin, CSO of Mannin Research Inc. — a partner of Q BioMed Inc. — was recently interviewed by Eye On Vision, a program of radio station WYPL-FM 89.3 for those with visual impairments. Dr. Quaggin reportedly talked about glaucoma, treatment options, and her novel findings on the relationship between Tie2/TEK signaling, Schelmm's Canal and glaucoma.
- And also this week, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced the winners of its fourth annual Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation — an award designed to acknowledge, reward and foster talented early-career biomedical scientists.