Help! Stop me before I write again! Lin is going to shoot me. I have housework to do and a psychological evaluation report to write and what I feel like doing is pretty much exactly nuthin’, muffin. Too hot. [Lin/Linda: I don’t think that would stop the speeding train that is YOU! ::grin::]
20 minutes later
Ooopsie. Back from running after the Maggie Monster. She got out and decided to go play with the big dog down the way. That is BIG dog. Do you know what three days of a heat wave does to asphalt and bare feet???? Ouch!
But enough of the autobiographical details. I found an article entitled Wet AMD in 2018: Drugs in Development. I really swear the researchers love you guys better because they do all sorts of wonderful things for you. ?
For example, an anti-VEGF called Brolucizumab is in phase 3 clinicals. This drug is exciting because it can be dosed in larger amounts resulting in extended times between treatments.
OPT- 302 is a compound that will block the activities of the proteins VEGF-C and VEGF-D. Remember VEGF stands for Vascular Epithelial Growth Factor. The VEGFs cause the growth of substandard veins. Blocking these in wet AMD is a good thing.
According to this article, ranibizumab blocks VEGF- A. Not too sure how many letters there actually are, but combining OPT-302 with ranibizumab will take care of more of the alphabet.
OPT- 302 is in phase 1/2 clinicals. It will take a while.
Ok. Get out your water wings ladies and gents because it is getting a little deep?.
Platelet growth factor binds to a tyrosine kinase receptor. The receptor is essential for the survival, recruitment, and maturation of pericytes.
No, not parasites. It just sounds almost the same. According to Wikipedia, pericytes are associated with allowing cells to differentiate, multiply and form vascular branches among other things. The bottom line is: disable the platelet growth factor and you can stop or significantly slow the growth of new blood vessels. One more way to get to the goal. Not anti-VEGF. This one is anti-PDGF. Auntie Pidge? [No, I have no clue where she comes up with some of this!! ::grin::]
Names to look for: pegpleranib and rinucumab. So far pegpleranib has done little to nothing in clinical trials but they are combining it with anti-VEGFs to see if there will be a combined effect. Rinucumab did not do much either. Same with DE-120 (Santen). However, you never know. The concept appears sound and they will probably keep working on them.
They continue to look at tyrosine kinase inhibitors in other studies. Vorolanib is in this category. The APEX study is in phase 2. Maybe one day you can have Auntie Pidge to thank for saving your vision!
The article goes on and talks about drugs that attack angiopoietin 2. This is a blood vessel growth factor. They are also targeting substances that require a lot more knowledge of biochemistry than I ever wanted to have or thought I would need to understand what they do. Suffice it to say they are all compounds that have a role in making those nasty, extra blood vessels grow.
So that is what is in the pipeline for you wet folks. Seems like a lot. Are you SURE they don’t love you better?
[Just so that we don’t forget, there is research going on for dry AMD as well. Here’s Summary of Research and Development — 2018 by Dan Roberts with research in both dry and wet AMD.]
Written July 3rd, 2018