VIDEO: Geographic atrophy enters new era with two treatments

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Currently there are two treatments that are commercially available for use in practice outside of a research setting, which is really exciting. Both of them came to us in the last year. There’s pegcetacoplan, or Syfovre, which is a complement inhibitor from Apellis, and the mechanism of action for this is inhibition of C3, and it’s indicated to slow the progression of geographic atrophy. Another drug that was FDA approved in the second half of last year is avacincaptad pegol, or Izervay, which is a C5 inhibitor, so also working in the complement pathway. And that’s from Iveric Bio. Both of these drugs are administered intravitreally, either monthly or every other month depending on the medication, and both have been shown to slow the rate of geographic atrophy lesion growth, which is really exciting because again, up until this point, we haven’t really had anything to offer patients outside of a clinical trial setting. It’s really a new era for us, I think, as retina specialists as we think about who the best patients are to treat with these medications and how to really implement these new treatments in our clinical practice.