VIDEO: Greatest areas of unmet need in AMD

Editor’s note: This is a previously posted video, and the below is an automatically generated transcript to be used for informational purposes. Please notify editor@healio.com if there are concerns regarding accuracy of the transcription.

There are a variety of different unmet needs, especially in wet macular degeneration. The first is that, really, we only inhibit one mechanism of action, currently. We with an anti-VEGF agent, right now. And that might not be sufficient for all patients with this condition, or with this disease state. The second is that we don't have the durability we would like, out of these current molecules. It still requires patients to come in very frequently. Some of the studies have averaged, if you don't come in less than six times a year, that, if you come in in that infrequently, that you potentially have a worse visual outcome, as a result of that. If you come in seven or more times, in a year, you have a better chance of improving or maintaining your visual acuity. And the last is that we have the lack of sustained delivery options for these drug delivery platforms, right now. And that, I think, is another unmet need, which we're getting soon enough, through both many different mechanisms, gene therapy, or other implants, that are being placed within the eye, for those delivery mechanisms. With regards to your dry macular degeneration, the unmet need really is around prevention to geographic atrophy and, then, progression of geographic atrophy. And we hope to see the results from this year, the APL2 studies, which are looking at complement factor inhibition. And if those prove positive, maybe we'll have a drug for, potentially, the progression of disease, but we don't necessarily have a drug for the restoring of tissue, in the patients who have lost this tissue, due to this condition. So, that's still an unmet need, which could be satisfied in multiple different ways. You're looking at things like retinal cell transplantation, stem cell delivery models, all these sorts of things might be a very, very effective way of delivering new therapies to these patients.