Eyedrops in development for treating conditions such as AMD and Diabetic macular edema

Eye drops are being developed for treating retina that will likely eliminate the need to inject compounds to the back of the eye in conditions such as age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema.

From Scifluor

SciFluor Life Sciences, LLC, an emerging clinical stage biopharmaceutical company located in Cambridge, MA, has been awarded US patent #8,901,144 with claims covering the novel compound SF0166, which is a small molecule integrin antagonist designed to treat retinal disease, including Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and Diabetic Macular Edema (DME), via topical administration to the eye.

Topical administration of medications (eye drops) for treating the retina in order to eliminate the need to inject compounds to the back of the eye has been considered an enormous challenge. Current treatments require repeated injections into the back of the eye in order to get enough of the drug where it is needed. A drug that could localize in the back of the eye after administration as an eye drop would remove the need for repeated injections. To date, no topically administered drug has been approved for these indications.

SciFluor is developing SF0166, a potent and selective small molecule inhibitor of integrin αvβ3 with an optimum balance of physiochemical properties to allow it to distribute to the retina in high concentrations after topical administration to the eye. It has been tested in an extensive set of pre-clinical assays and shown to be effective in a validated in vivo model of wet AMD. The non-fluorinated compound on which it is based does not distribute appreciably to the back of the eye after topical administration.

SF0166 therapeutic program is targeted to treat both wet Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) as well as Diabetic Macular Edema (DME).

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