The National Eye Institute indicates that nAMD is the most common cause of vision impairment among people >50 years of age. It is an eye condition where the macula, a spot in the retina situated in the back of the eye, is damaged. This leads to a blurred area in the patient’s vision, or blank spots.

In 2010, 10 to 15% of the 285 million vision impaired population was due to nAMD. nAMD accounts for 90% of severe vision loss caused by macular degeneration. It is predicted to affect 288 million people by 2040¹.

In nAMD, new blood vessels grow below the retina and begin to leak blood causing blockage of vision. In research studies, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) have in implicated to play an important role in this process.

To treat nAMD, researchers have developed anti-VEGF therapies, which have been used to slow down and even reverse the vision loss.

Although anti-VEGF therapies have had success in treating wet AMD, still ~50% of patients either do not respond to these drugs, or begin to lose efficacy over time due to fibrosis⁵. Anti-VEGF therapies also do not act on all the different mechanisms of retinal disease, and frequent injections cause a significant treatment burden.

Therefore, there is still an unmet medical need to develop new therapies to benefit patients.