Injector and Durasert insert with vorolanib

EyePoint Pharmaceuticals announced its wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) treatment EYP-1901 has completed phase 1 clinical trials, indicating some patients might only need six-monthly injections. 

EYP-1901 is a sustained-release of vorolanib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, dispensed by EyePoint’s Durasert implant. The bio-erodible implant is already in use in four other US Food & Drug Administration (FDA)-approved products to treat uveitis, diabetic macular oedema (DMO) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis. Dr Jay Duker, EyePoint’s COO, told Modern Retina that among the 17 patients in the trial, all of whom had been previously treated for wet AMD, 53% of EYP-1901-treated eyes did not require a standard of care rescue injection at six months. “We had what we feel was a very clinically significant decrease of a burden of the injections by 79% across the entire cohort,” he said.  

Dr Duker said that they hadn’t expected any visual acuity (VA) improvements during the trial, but hoped for and achieved stability, with the only change in VA across the whole cohort being approximately minus two letters, plus a small decrease in retinal thickness of about two microns. 

Vorolanib previously showed efficacy for wet AMD in phase 1 and 2 human trials as an oral preparation but also proved toxic; EYP-1901’s phase 1 trial showed no drug-related adverse events.