Key takeaways:
- A wide range of regenerative therapies for retinal diseases show promise for vision restoration.
- Access to these treatments will require a demonstration of their positive patient impact to insurance payers.
DENVER — Despite challenges for approval and access, regenerative therapies for retinal diseases may not be far away from becoming viable treatment options, according to a panel discussion at Eyecelerator@ARVO.
Allan C. Ho, MD, who co-moderated the panel, told Healio that there are still unmet needs from a patient perspective for those with retinal degenerations, even with approved therapies for age-related macular degeneration and geographic atrophy. However, several innovations in cell therapy and optogenetics, as well as technologies including the Prima subretinal implant, show promise in moving regenerative medicine in retina forward.
“These are things that we’ve been waiting our whole career for: The prospect of being able to offer vision restoration to patients,” SriniVas R. Sadda, MD, FARVO, co-moderator of the panel, told Healio. “We’re not quite there in terms of having these therapies approved and broadly available for the most part, but it was clear that there has been quite a bit of progress.”
Source: Healio