Spark Therapeutics Inc. hit a $1.2 billion valuation on the biotechnology firm’s first day on the market, reflecting growing investor enthusiasm for the once-beleaguered field of gene therapy, a field that has produced the first $1 million drug. The treatments focus on diseases where a single mutation in the genetic code is known to be…
Eleven Biotherapeutics (EBIO), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing protein therapeutics to treat diseases of the eye, today announced the completion of patient enrollment in its first pivotal, Phase 3 clinical study of EBI-005 in patients with dry eye disease. EBI-005, a topical, novel interleukin-1 (IL-1) receptor blocker, is Eleven’s lead drug candidate in development…
RetroSense Therapeutics, LLC, a privately-held biopharmaceutical company, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug designation for the Company’s lead product RST-001 for the treatment of retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Retinitis pigmentosa is a genetic condition which leads to the progressive degeneration of rod and cone photoreceptors (cells found in…
…stem cell researchers have struggled to coax the malleable cells to form the 10 layers of the retina. And, crucially, no one had, before now, produced lab-grown retinal cells that they demonstrated would respond to light.Researchers at Johns Hopkins pulled it off, they reported in a paper published recently in Nature Communications. They cultivated a…
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed two inexpensive adapters that enable a smartphone to capture high-quality images of the front and back of the eye. The adapters make it easy for anyone with minimal training to take a picture of the eye and share it securely with other health practitioners or…
The 6th Ocular Diseases & Drug Discovery Conference is taking place on March 20-21, 2014 in San Diego, CA. The conference continues to offer presentations on novel and innovative therapeutics in ocular drug development and discovery. This forum allows for excellent networking, the exchange of ideas, and sharing of challenges; all with a united common…
Paracentral acute middle maculopathy is a newly identified variant of acute macular neuroretinopathy that appears to result from retinal capillary ischemia, according to a retrospective observational case series. “This has been traditionally a very rare disease but now with advanced retinal imaging systems such as spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) and infrared reflectance imaging…
The human brain has 100 billion neurons, connected to each other in networks that allow us to interpret the world around us, plan for the future, and control our actions and movements. MIT neuroscientist Sebastian Seung wants to map those networks, creating a wiring diagram of the brain that could help scientists learn how we…
For the first time, scientists have successfully transplanted light-detecting cells in the retina, grown from embryonic stem cells, into mice–a feat that could advance similar therapies using the artificial cells to treat degenerative eye diseases toward human trials. The animal transplant is a huge step for embryonic stem cell-based therapies, which have moved slowly to…
Rafal Farjo, PhD, COO of eyecro, told Outsourcing-pharma.com that the “demand for ophthalmology studies is increasing. Many research scientists are uncovering new mechanisms and targets for ophthalmic disease, it is also becoming apparent that there is pathology in common with many other clinical indications. eyecro specializes in ophthalmic studies of preclinical efficacy, pharmacokinetics, toxicology, and…