Polymeric Nanoparticles for Sustained Intraocular Drug Delivery

Polymeric Nanoparticles for Sustained Intraocular Drug Delivery

 Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) are major causes of blindness and visual impairment.  Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) plays a critical role in the development and progression of neovascular AMD and the current standard of care is monthly intraocular injections of ranibizumab, an antibody fragment that specifically blocks VEGF, and two other VEGF binding proteins, bevacizumab and VEGF Trap-eye, provide similar benefits. Frequent office visits and injections are necessary to suppress disease progression, however, they also create significant burden on elderly patients and the risk of severe vision loss increases with injection number.  Attempts to reduce visit and injection frequency leave uncovered periods, increasing the chance of subretinal fibrosis and/or hemorrhage and reduced visual outcomes. Therefore, new sustained delivery treatments that provide constant protection are needed. This talk will discuss our recent development of a polymeric nanoparticle with an inhibitor of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) built into the backbone that strongly suppresses and causes regression of ocular neovascularization (NV) in animal models of AMD and DR.