SAPHTx: Injectable hydrogel for treating neovascular ocular diseases

Technology: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy (DR) are leading causes of blindness in the world. Debilitating vision loss causes a significant socio-economic burden on afflicted geriatric, diabetic, at-risk youth, and under-represented populations. Proliferation of maladaptive blood vessels (angiogenesis) on the retina characterize these posterior segment neovascular diseases of the eye. Current treatments focus on inhibitors of angiogenesis (monoclonal antibodies or small molecule therapeutics). These treatments are expensive and require monthly intraocular dosing, resulting in patient discomfort and poor compliance. The proposed solution is a cost-effective, long lasting, and injectable hydrogel called SAPHTx (Figure 1). This hydrogel is composed exclusively of naturally occurring amino acids engineered to include an anti-angiogenic domain from the human plasminogen Kringle 5 (Kr5). We have further engineered the hydrogel to slowly dissociate over a 6-month period for long-term disease management. This will drastically reduce injection frequency, provide long-term attenuation of angiogenesis, improve patient compliance, and reduce the likelihood of side effects, such as endophthalmitis. Through interviews with advisors and key opinion leaders in ophthalmology, we have elected to pursue an initial target market of patients suffering from wet AMD. Depending on results of Phase II and Phase III trials, we will strategically expand to DR.