Opthea heads for accelerated approval of its age-related macular degeneration therapy

Biotech News: Opthea, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapies to treat highly prevalent and progressive retinal diseases, announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation for the company’s VEGF-C/-D ‘trap’ inhibitor, OPT-302, in combination with anti-VEGF-A therapy for the treatment of patients with neovascular (wet) age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Opthea is currently recruiting patients into two concurrent global Phase 3 trials. Both clinical studies will enroll ~990 treatment-naive patients each and assess the efficacy and safety of intravitreal 2.0 mg OPT-302 in combination with Novartis’ Lucentis or Bayer’s Eylea, compared to Lucentis or Eylea monotherapy, respectively.

The FDA’s Fast Track program offers a number of benefits to help advance development and expedite the review of novel therapies for serious conditions for which there is an unmet medical need, with the aim of getting important new therapies to patients more quickly. This Fast Track designation acknowledges the significant unmet medical need in the management of neovascular AMD, and the potential role that OPT-302 may have in addressing it.

“Given the need to improve therapeutic options for wet AMD patients, we welcome this Fast Track designation for OPT-302 and the regulatory support it provides in expediting the Phase 3 development program to advance this promising novel treatment to patients sooner,” commented Dr. Megan Baldwin, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Opthea.

“The recognition from the FDA to grant OPT-302 Fast Track designation reflects the seriousness of wet AMD as a debilitating eye disease and the importance of advancing new therapies such as OPT-302 to address the significant unmet medical need for wet AMD patients, many of whom experience an incomplete response to VEGF-A inhibitors despite regular, ongoing therapy. By targeting a novel mechanism of action, OPT-302 has the potential to be a truly differentiated treatment option that when used in combination offers patients improved vision outcomes over standard of care anti-VEGF-A monotherapy.”