Therapeutic Areas in Ophthalmology ace

Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD)

Inquiry

Accelerating AMD Research

About Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD)

What is AMD?

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the third leading cause of blindness worldwide, is the leading cause of vision loss in older adults. According to literature reports, about 170 million people worldwide are affected by AMD, and due to the exponential aging of the global population, the prevalence of AMD may increase to 288 million by 2040. There are many heterogeneous risk factors associated with this disease, of which aging is a major factor. In addition to aging, environment, and lifestyle as well as genetic background and inflammation are also implicated in AMD pathogenesis.

AMD has traditionally been broadly divided into two clinical subtypes: dry or nonexudative and wet/neovascular or exudative.

AMD Treatment Strategies

For wet AMD, although there are drug treatments for wet AMD and different types of drugs have been proposed to treat the disease, there is currently no ideal treatment for AMD. However, the proposed gold standard treatment for AMD patients is based on limiting the function of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) by intravitreal injection of anti-VEGF molecules, which was found to be effective in avoiding loss of visual function and stabilizing disease progression. Only three anti-VEGF drugs are currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for AMD treatment.

Unlike wet AMD, to date, there are no approved treatments for dry AMD. However, many trials are underway to explore new agents for AMD treatment and prevention in combination with other therapeutic targets. For example, L-DOPA has been studied as an AMD treatment. In these studies, exogenous levodopa prevented AMD. Clinical trials investigating stem cell therapy based on RPE cell transplantation to treat tissue damaged by CNV or tissue loss due to geographic atrophy are ongoing. In addition, dry and early AMD patients are often advised to follow a preventative approach that uses some natural medicine-based supplements including carotenoids, lutein and zeaxanthin, and Omega-3 lipids to suppress oxidative stress and inflammation.

With regard to biological therapies, the results of gene and stem cell therapies currently being investigated point to them as potential alternative treatments for AMD with very interesting prognoses.Table 1 lists the research efforts in the treatment of wet/dry ADM, as well as the promising clinical trials underway.

Tab.1. Approved or advanced in trials Wet / Dry AMD treatments. (Hadziahmetovic M, et al., 2021)

AMD	Generic	Brand name	Manufacturer	Target	FDA approved / year	Phase
Wet AMD	Pegabtanib	Macugen	OSI Pharmaceuticals	165 isoforms VEGF-A/Pegylated RNA aptamer	Yes/2004	Concluded
	Ranimizumab	Lucentis	Genentech	All isoforms VEGF-A/Monoclonal anti-VEGF (Fab) fragment	Yes/2006	Concluded
	Bevaclzumab	Avastin	Genentech	All isoforms VEGF-A/Monoclonal Ab	No	Concluded
	Aflibercept	Eylea	Regeneron	All isoforms of VEGF-A, VEGF-B, and PIGF15/Fusion protein: VEGFR-1,2 fused with lgG1 Fc	Yes/2011	Concluded
	Brolucizumab	Beovu	Novartis/Alcon	VEGF-A. B, PIGF/Single-chain anti-VEGF Ab/fragments (scFv)	Yes/2019	Concluded
	Conbercapl		Lumitin	All isoforms of VEGF-A, VEGF-B, VEGF-C, and PIGF32/Fusion protein: VEGFR-1,2 fused with lgG1 Fc	No/approved in China	Concluded
	Faricimab		Genentech/Roch	All isoforms VEGF-A and Ang-2/Bispecific monoclonal Ab	No	Phase3
	ARP-1536		Aerpio	All isoforms of VEGF-A (inactivate), Tie2 (activate)/reactivating monoclonal antibody	No	Predinical development
	OPT-302		Opthea	VEGF-C and VEGF-D/Trap’ molecule (VEGF-C and VEGF-D)	No	Phase2
	KSI-301		Kodiak Science	All isoforms of VEGF-A/anti-VEGF antibody biopolymer conjugate	No	Phase1
	Abicipar pegol		Allergan	Ankyrin repeat proteins (DARPin)Zall isoforms of anti-VEGF A	No	Phase3
	RGX-314		Regenxbio	All isoforms of VEGF-A/NAV AAV8 vector containing a gene encoding for a monoclonal antibody fragment	No	Phase2
	ADVM-022		Adverum Biotechnologies, Inc.	All isoforms of VEGF-A/AAVJmS-aflibercept	No	Phase1
	PAN-90S06		Panoptica	VEGFR2/small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor	No	Phase2
Dry AMD	PRIM A FS-US		Pixium Vision	Bionic Vision	No	N/A
	Risuteganib	Luminate	Allegro Ophthalmic	Mitochondrial dysfunction (oxidative stress)/integrin inhibitor	No	Phase2
	ALK001-P3001		Alkeus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.	Modified vitamin A decreases rate of toxic dimer formation	No	Phase 3
	AAVCAGsCDSS		Hamera Biosciences	MAC inhibition via CD59/gene therapy	No	Phase 2
	Eculizumab		Soliris, Alexon	A humanized monoclonal antibody derived from the murine anti-human C5 antibody	No	Phase 2
	Lampalizumab		Genentech	Antigen-binding fragment (Fab) of a humanized monoclonal antibody that acts as a selective inhibitor of complement factor D	No	Phase 2
	Pegcetacoplan (APL-2)		Apellis Pharmaceuticals	Synthetic molecule that selectively inhibits C3, effectively downregulating all three complement pathways	No	Phase 3
	Avacincaptad pegol	Zirnura	Ophthotech/lveric	Complement factor- C5 inhibitor	No	Phase 2
	CPCB-RPE1		Regenerative Patch Tech.	Human Embryonic Stem RPEs/RPE transplantation	No	Phase 2
	Brimo DDS		Allergan	Brimonidine implant/neuroprotection	No	Phase 2
	CNTO-2476		Janssen Pharmaceuticals	Biological/non-stem cell-based therapy with palucorcel (CNTO-2476), which uses human umbilical cord tissue-derived cells (hUTC)	No	Phase 2
	hESC MA09-hRPE		Astellas Pharma Inc.	biological/sub-retinal Transplantation of hESC Derived RPE (MA09-hRPE)	No	Phase 2
			Chinese Academy of Sciences	Human Embryonic Stem RPEs/RPE transplantation	No	Phase 2
	FHTR2163		Genentech/Roche	Antibody delivered by intravitreal injection that inhibits a serine protease gene (HTRAI)	No	Phase 2

A growing body of research is being used to explore new treatments for dry and wet AMD. Unfortunately, a large number of potential drugs have been tested for dry AMD, all of which have failed. Currently, more drug candidates are undergoing clinical trials.

One-Stop Preclinical AMD Studies Solutions

As an industry-leading comprehensive contract research organization (CRO), Ace Therapeutics focuses on the health of ocular diseases and improves ocular diseases by helping customers provide drug discovery and preclinical research solutions. Our support staff averages decades of experience in preclinical ophthalmology research for pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies, and large CROs, who help customers around the world deal with each stage of preclinical drug development. Our one-stop solutions cover the development of ocular disease models, in vivo ocular pharmacodynamic studies, ocular tolerance and safety studies, early pilot studies, and proof-of-concept and bioanalytical levels. All of our projects are customizable and flexible, which allows us to fully understand our clients' needs and how to meet them.

At Ace Therapeutics, our team of experts is dedicated to supporting preclinical AMD research. Our AMD platform includes multi-species models (rodent, zebrafish, rabbit, piglet, canine, and non-human primate (NHP)) to support your development of drug treatments for wet/dry AMD. Our service scope covers the whole process from lead compound discovery to the implementation of preclinical GLP projects. Importantly, we also have a well-established stem cell and gene therapy platform, which can help you explore biological therapies for AMD. With decades of AMD research experience, you have reason to believe that we are the most trustworthy partner on your AMD project development journey.

References

Hadziahmetovic M, Malek G. Age-Related Macular Degeneration Revisited: From Pathology and Cellular Stress to Potential Therapies. Front Cell Dev Biol. 2021, 8:612812.
Galindo-Camacho RM, Blanco-Llamero C, da Ana R, et al. Therapeutic Approaches for Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Int J Mol Sci. 2022, 23(19):11769.

Age-Related Macular Degeneration AMD

For Research Use Only.

Get in Touch