VIDEO: GLP-1 agonists may ‘change the landscape of diabetic retinopathy’

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When we think about diabetes and diabetic macular edema and diabetic retinopathy, we have to think about the systemic control of this disease, and there’s been a whole class of drugs that has had a boom. You know, we talk about Ozempic (semaglutide, Novo Nordisk), Mounjaro (tirzepatide, Eli Lilly) — these are effectively GLP-1 agonists. Now, we don’t talk about this much in the retina space, but we oftentimes talk about them in terms of worsening of diabetic retinopathy, and that comes from some of the clinical studies. But when you start seeing these patients over long windows of time, you’re starting to see that HbA1c that was probably stuck somewhere around 9%, 8.5%, really starting to come down, and I think that is something that’s going to really change the landscape of diabetic retinopathy. The fact that we can have really much improved glycemic control over long windows of time, that’s going to outweigh the short-term worsening that we oftentimes see.