Luxa's stem cell therapy for dry AMD shows early promise

Luxa Biotechnology's Keith Dionne and Jeffrey Stern spoke with Endpoints News about our investigational cell therapy for dry Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and early Phase 1/2a clinical data presented at today's Wills Eye Hospital Research Symposium. Luxa Bio said that its stem cell therapy helped improve vision in a handful of people with a common form of an age-related eye condition.

In its lowest dose cohort, the Phase 1/2a study enrolled six participants with dry AMD, which leads to blurred vision or worse central vision and the six people each received a suspension of 50,000 adult retinal pigment epithelial stem cells. These patients were divided into two groups: a worse-seeing group and a better-seeing group. In the data shared this week, the three participants in the worse-seeing group were followed for 12 months, showing an average gain of +21.67 letters on an ETDRS chart, a vision test that measures how well a person can see. The three participants in the better-seeing group saw a +3.3-letter improvement at three months.

Some of the participants were close to legal blindness, according to Luxa CEO Keith Dionne. “It was heartening to know that the worse-seeing subjects are the subjects most in need of vision improvement, and it was good to find that they had the largest improvement,” Luxa CMO Jeffrey Stern said in an interview. “With magnification, they can read, possibly drive with daytime driving, restricted driving. But importantly, it reverses the disease progression, which is inexorable, gradual loss.” Stern said that there were no significant safety events to date.

These promising clinical results contributed to recent Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy designation from the FDA.

The article  

https://endpts.com/luxas-stem-cell-therapy-for-dry-amd-shows-early-promise/