VIDEO: Promising future research in intermediate AMD, wet AMD treatments

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In terms of future promising areas for AMD, there are two broad areas. The first area is addressing intermediate AMD. As I mentioned previously, there’s indeed an oral supplement, AREDS2, that’s been shown to slow down the progression from intermediate AMD to advanced AMD. But other than that, we really don’t have any concrete strategy in slowing down the progression of intermediate AMD. And truth be told, although we have very good treatment for wet AMD, most people do end up losing vision if they were to progress to advanced AMD. So, I think the first area of important research is to figure out ways to prevent the development of advanced AMD in the first place. And the second area of exciting future research is in the treatment of wet AMD. Right now, the most common class of medications that is being used to treat wet AMD is repeated intravitreal injections that target VEGF. It has been a standard of care. It really has changed the trajectory of patients with AMD, but a lot more needs to be done. And specifically in terms of wet AMD therapy, there are several interesting lines of research that we are seeing. The first one is longer-acting agents, meaning taking existing agents, repackaging them and delivering them in a different way, such as in a depot format that can last longer. The second is the research in gene therapy. And the idea is that instead of us giving these patients some sort of intervention on a regular basis, we can use gene therapy and tell the patient’s own cells to produce the kind of chemical that we’re interested in. And the third area is now we’re seeing a lot of either existing approved medication or medications coming down the pipeline that block multiple things at the same time, so, for example, not just blocking VEGF but VEGF plus Tie2 tyrosine kinase receptor or VEGF plus platelet-derived growth factor. So, these are the three main areas in terms of wet AMD therapy that are very exciting to me.