Pre-clinical development of novel oral plasma kallikrein inhibitors for the treatment of diabetic macular edema

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Retinopathy (damage to blood vessels in the retina at the back of the eye) is a serious and common complication of diabetes that can lead to blindness. One of the main problems is that the blood vessels become leaky which allows fluid to escape and accumulate in the retina. There are a limited number of treatment options; laser therapy is commonly used, or alternatively injections into the eye of drugs known to prevent leakiness, although this doesn’t work for every patient. Recently KalVista scientists showed that large amounts of a protein called plasma kallikrein causes the blood vessel leakiness and that a drug which can block plasma kallikrein effectively could become a breakthrough treatment for retinopathy. KalVista is a pharmaceutical company that has extensively studied plasma kallikrein and is proposing to use this experience to develop an oral drug that will block the action of plasma kallikrein which could lead to a brand new treatment for this debilitating and devastating disease.