Opko starts pivotal eye drug trial

The multi-national trial will include more than 330 wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) patients and will assess whether bevasiranib administered every eight or 12 weeks is safe and has equivalent efficacy in preventing vision loss as Genentech’s Lucentis administered every four weeks.

Bevasiranib is a first-in-class small interfering RNA (siRNA) drug designed to silence the genes that produce vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), believed to be largely responsible for the growth of the abnormal and leaky blood vessels that result in the vision loss of wet AMD.

Currently patients with wet AMD undergo intravitreal injections every four weeks to achieve the vision- preserving benefits of Lucentis, so the potential ability of bevasiranib to achieve similar results while requiring less frequent injections would be an important benefit for these patients who often have limited mobility, Opko said.