Preventing choroidal neovascularization by long-term transscleral drug delivery

描述（由申请人提供）：视网膜相关性黄斑变性（ARMD）是生活在工业化世界的55岁以上个体失明的主要原因。随着新型抗血管生成剂的引入，目前有可能进行临床干预，但仅适用于湿性形式的疾病。然而，这些治疗受到必须直接注射到眼睛中的事实的严重限制。该手术具有显著的并发症风险，并产生患者可接受性的可理解问题。显然需要一种绕过眼部注射或减少其频率的治疗方法。经巩膜药物递送提供了将药物递送到眼睛的后段的便利方式。我们建议测试和开发一种新的和强大的经巩膜给药系统，具有无毒，微创和高度可定制的不同疗法的承诺。该提案的成功将为制药行业和全球患者提供一种新的方法来治疗ARMD，而无需每月或6周眼内注射的负担。为了验证概念，我们将使用一种新的基于人类蛋白质的疗法，该疗法在初步动物研究中显示出巨大的潜力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Age-related Macular Degeneration (ARMD) is the leading cause of blindness for individuals over fifty-five years of age that live in the industrialized world. With the introduction of novel anti-angiogenic agents, clinical intervention is currently possible, but only for the wet form of the disease. However, these treatments are severely limited by the fact that they must be directly injected into the eye. This procedure carries a significant risk of complication and generates understandable issues of patient acceptability. There is a clear need for a therapy that either bypasses the need for ocular injection or reduces its frequency. Transscleral drug delivery provides a convenient way for delivering drug to the posterior segment of the eye. We propose to test and develop a novel and powerful transscleral drug delivery system that holds promise for being non-toxic, minimally invasive and highly customizable towards different therapies. The success of this proposal will offer a new method to the pharmaceutical industry and to patients worldwide to treat ARMD without the current burden of monthly or 6-weekly intraocular injections. For proof-of-concept, we will use a novel, human protein-based therapy that has shown great potential in preliminary animal studies.