Regeneron and Bayer present wet AMD data

USA-based Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Germany's Bayer HealthCare presented data on the former's VEGF Trap-Eye at the annual meeting of the Retina Society in Arizona, USA.

In a double-masked Phase II trial, patients with age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD) were initially treated with either fixed monthly or quarterly dosing for 12 weeks and then continued to receive treatment for another 40 weeks as needed.

Patients receiving either 2mg or 0.5mg doses of the drug achieved mean improvements in visual acuity versus baseline of 9.0 letters (p<0.0001) and 5.4 letters (p<0.085), respectively, at the end of one year. The proportion of patients with vision of 20/40 or better increased from 23% at baseline to 45% at week 52 in patients initially dosed with 2mg and from 16% at baseline to 47% in patients in the 0.5mg group. Subjects also achieved mean decreases in retinal thickness vs baseline of 143 microns (p<0.0001) and 125 microns (p<0.0001) at week 52, respectively. There were no drug-related serious adverse events during the study.