From developing oral treatments for diabetic macular edema to novel biomarkers for geographic atrophy, these are the news stories and studies that caught our attention this week…
Oral DME treatment. Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) announced the launch of its THULITE phase II study of BI 1815368, an oral treatment that could potentially help improve the vision of diabetic macular edema (DME) patients. “An oral therapy for DME could represent a major step forward in its management,” stated Charles C. Wykoff, the Principal Investigator of the trial and Director of Research at Retina Consultants of Texas. The trial marks the fourth BI investigational compound to move to phase II clinical trials, and represents the company’s focus on developing diabetic retinal disease treatments. Link
Alcon sets sights on LumiThera. Alcon has announced its intention to acquire ophthalmic medical device company LumiThera. The deal will see Alcon acquire rights to the Valeda Light Delivery System, LumiThera’s photobiomodulation (PBM) device aimed at treating dry, early, and intermediate dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The PDM device uses low-level non-phototoxic light to stimulate mitochondrial energy production, allowing ophthalmologists to administer the noninvasive treatments while patients sit comfortably in the clinic. Link
Targeting metastatic eye melanoma. A Nature Genetics study has introduced a novel target with therapeutic potential for metastatic eye melanoma. Scientists from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK, used CRISPR screening to reveal the synthetic lethal relationship between two genes – CDS1 and CDS2 – that rely on one another during the development of the disease. The authors found that loss of CDS1 selectively kills cancer cells with low or absent CDS2, a condition observed in uveal melanoma and other tumor types. Mechanistically, CDS1 loss in CDS2-deficient cells causes toxic lipid accumulation and endoplasmic reticulum stress, ultimately leading to cell death. This finding indicates that CDS1 inhibition could potentially represent a targeted therapeutic strategy in CDS2-low cancers, opening the door to exploiting gene paralog dependencies as a precision oncology approach. Link
Imaging biomarkers for GA. An Ophthalmology Science study has introduced two new imaging biomarkers – Macular Tissue Integrity Index (MTII) and Ellipsoid Zone Integrity Index (EZII) – to assess central retinal health in geographic atrophy (GA). Using imaging taken from 43 clinical trial patients, the authors – based at the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, US – found that MTII and EZII in the central 1-mm zone of the macula significantly correlated with best-corrected visual acuity, while EZII in the 3-mm zone also correlated with low-luminance vision. Importantly, changes in these indices over one year did not track with overall GA lesion growth, highlighting the limitations of traditional GA measurements. The findings support MTII and EZII as promising biomarkers for monitoring visual function in GA, and suggest that they could improve clinical trial endpoints. Link
