Taiwan develops drug to treat diabetic macular edema скачать в хорошем качестве

Taiwan develops drug to treat diabetic macular edema

There are over 2 million diabetes patients in Taiwan. If diabetes is not controlled, it can lead to medical issues affecting the eyes. About 2% of patients are diagnosed with diabetic macular edema, which is caused by uncontrolled blood sugar levels and too much fluid building up in the macula-the part of the eye that helps people see. A Taiwan-based biopharmaceutical company and a university have partnered to develop a drug that treats the condition and other retinal diseases. FTV reporter Stephany Yang has the details. There are over 2 million diabetes patients in Taiwan. If diabetes is not properly managed, it can lead to medical issues affecting the eyes. About 2% of patients are diagnosed with diabetic macular edema, which causes reduced and blurred vision. Dr. Madhu Cherukury Chief Executive Officer Currently, in retinal diseases, there is an un-met medical need to treat patients. That is angiogenesis, inflammation, and fibrosis. When you take diabetic macular edema patients, 30% of the patients are responding to the current treatment. Another 30% are partial. The underlying causes of retinal diseases include uncontrollable blood vessel growth, inflammation and scarring. National Cheng Kung University and a pharmaceutical company has designed a drug using snake venom proteins that can block these pathways. Chuang Woei-jer National Cheng Kung University In our technology, we engineered snake venom into the drug. As I just mentioned, we got rid of the side effect. It means we got rid of some targets and kept the main target for angiogenesis. That’s what we did for protein engineering. This is the first biologics, which means protein drug that can enter a Phase 2 clinical trial. Dr. Madhu Cherukury Chief Executive Officer Most of the drugs currently are antibodies. This is a special drug. It’s called Fc-fusion protein. It has multiple targets in one compound. It’s not an antibody. We can treat diabetic macular edema patients, we can treat age-related macular degeneration patients, and we can also treat other retinal diseases. We are hoping to treat dry age-related macular degeneration as well with this drug. It has a huge opportunity to treat many retinal diseases. Aside from retinal diseases, the team says that the drug can also help treat pancreatic cancer. Yen Chia-jui National Cheng Kung University Hospital Pancreatic cancer is high mortality and high chemo-resistant. If we use this new anti-angiogenesis drug we can overcome drug resistance and can prolong pancreatic cancer patient survival. Dr. Madhu Cherukury Chief Executive Officer This project is in phase 2A clinical trial in diabetic macular edema patients. We are in the process of recruiting patients in America. The team is currently undergoing Phase 2a trials. It hopes to help treat more patients with retinal diseases as well as other cancers.