One of the most commonly prescribed drugs for wet age-related macular degeneration is Avastin – a cancer drug. So it’s not that surprising that a new approach for wet AMD is radiation therapy – with aims to halt the growth of the unruly blood vessels that cause the disease.
Arizona startup Salutaris Medical Devices is developing a device that provides brachytherapy behind the eye to treat wet AMD. Wet AMD occurs when abnormal blood vessels leak fluid or blood into the macula region of the retina – causing a loss of eyesight at the center of a patient’s field of vision.
So here’s how the Salutaris mechanism (still not FDA-cleared, but in the midst of trials) works: A retinal surgeon feeds a fiber optic cable around the eye and to the back, where a radiation capsule will sit at the blood vessel lesion and deliver the requisite dosage. The procedure is quick – 15 minutes in total, which includes 5 minutes of radiation – and can be performed under local anesthesia. The eye is never punctured.
The device’s mechanism is a touch spine-tingling, but it beats the alternative – monthly injections of drugs like Avastin and Lucentis to the eye. Such drugs have limited efficacy among patients.
Current clinical trials for wet AMD run the gamut from proton beam therapies to small molecule drugs to oral biologics. It’s a disease that lacks a cure – and many companies are racing to find a more effective therapy for the disease.
Salutaris has completed a small Phase 1/2 trial in the U.S., a Salutaris rep said, and is preparing for additional trials.
[Image courtesy of Flickr user Andrew M. Butler]
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
