Ocuphire Pharma announced its Zeta-1 phase 2 trial showed oral diabetic retinopathy (DR) treatment APX3330 reduced patients’ progression on the diabetic retinopathy severity scale (DRSS) after 24 weeks of daily treatment.

Compared to the current intravitreal injection options, a non-invasive convenient oral therapy that prevents disease progression could shift the treatment paradigm and broaden the prescriber base to include not only eye care physicians but primary care and endocrinologists, said Ocuphire’s Rick Rodgers. “We look forward to an end-of-phase-2 meeting with the FDA to confirm the phase 3 study design and continue advancing APX3330 towards potential approval,” he said.

Research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found 26% of US diabetics have DR, with 20% of those people estimated to have DR’s vision-threatening form. Writing in JAMA Ophthalmology, first author Dr Elizabeth Lundeen and colleagues noted 5.6m males had DR vs 4.04m females, while Black and Hispanic individuals had higher rates of DR and higher standardised prevalence of vision-threatening DR compared to white individuals.