Verseon Presents Oral Drug Candidate for Diabetic Eye Disease That Could Replace Eye Injections
April 30 2019 - 8:00AM
Business Wire
- One in three long-term diabetes
patients will develop diabetic macular edema (DME), which can lead
to blindness.
- Present DME treatments are recurring
injections into the eye, which can lead to infection, inflammation
and are rejected by many patients.
- Promising efficacy and pharmacokinetic
data presented at ARVO 2019 show that Verseon’s oral drug candidate
could become a real alternative to current eye injections.
Verseon presented promising preclinical efficacy data for the
first development candidate for clinical trials in their diabetic
eye disease program at this week’s ARVO 2019 annual meeting in
Vancouver. This new drug candidate for oral dosing could lead to
the first real alternative to eye injections, the current standard
of care for millions of diabetics at risk of losing their eye
sight.
Diabetic macular edema (DME) is a leading cause of adult
blindness, affecting about one in three long-term diabetes
patients. With the prevalence of diabetes on the rise around the
globe, preventing complications like DME is becoming increasingly
urgent. However, the current standards of care for DME are regular
injections into the eye—treatments that are associated with side
effects including inflammation and infection and that work poorly
or not at all in about half of patients. Recent studies have also
shown that 25% of patients fail to follow up with their eye
injections, leaving them at risk of eventual vision loss.
Verseon’s development candidate, which is aimed for oral
administration, has the potential to fill a large unmet need for
both treatment and prevention of DME. The candidate is the first of
Verseon’s new class of small-molecule plasma kallikrein inhibitors
for oral dosing that has been nominated for advancement into
clinical trials.
At ARVO 2019, Dr. Melissa Calton, Verseon’s Program Manager of
Ophthalmology, presented comprehensive preclinical data for this
lead development candidate. In preclinical models, the compound
showed good efficacy against two important drivers of the
disease—the kallikrein and VEGF pathways—following administration
of a single oral dose.
“What’s most exciting about our DME candidates isn’t just that
they may replace eye injections, but that they could give doctors
an opportunity to prevent diabetes patients from developing DME in
the first place,” said Dr. Calton. “Its excellent pharmacokinetic
profile sets our development candidate apart from other candidates,
making it suitable for administration as a pill. We are very
encouraged by our preclinical results and are working to bring this
candidate into clinical trials.”
About Verseon’s diabetic macular edema program
Verseon has developed a new class of potent, selective
small-molecule plasma kallikrein inhibitors for the treatment of
diabetic macular edema (DME), a major cause of adult blindness. In
contrast to current customary DME treatments that are administered
as recurring eye injections, Verseon develops drug candidates for
oral dosing. Several lead candidates have demonstrated efficacy in
reducing retinal thickening and retinal leakage, two hallmarks of
the disease, when administered orally. The company is currently
preparing a first DME development candidate for phase 1 trials.
About Verseon
Verseon Corporation (www.verseon.com, AIM:VERS) is developing
disruptive life-science technology to advance global health. The
clinical-stage company is using its proprietary, computational drug
discovery platform to discover new drug candidates that are
unlikely to be found using conventional methods. Pairing its
computational platform with a comprehensive in-house chemistry and
biology workflow, the company has built a growing pipeline of drug
programs. Verseon currently has four active drug programs in the
areas of anticoagulation (currently in phase 1), diabetic macular
edema, hereditary angioedema, and oncology.
Find Verseon on Twitter and LinkedIn.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190430005295/en/
Verseon Corporation—Tina Schlafly+1 510 225
9014www.verseon.com
Verseon (LSE:VERS)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jun 2024 to Jul 2024
Verseon (LSE:VERS)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jul 2023 to Jul 2024