From Garr on LinkedIn
The good news stories in medicine are almost always a result of early detection and early intervention. I'm paraphrasing Thomas R Insel, a past leader at NIH. This is especially true in Dry Age related Macular Degeneration. Those of you who follow my posts know that our Company is developing an eye drop based on a reformulation of the drug Metformin to treat degenerative eye diseases; and that we are doing so in a collaboration with the NEI which will be running our first in human clinical trial. Our target is intermediate (as opposed to late) dry AMD, but from a practical point of view this will include early stage AMD also. As will all degenerative diseases, the earlier one can intervene, the more hope there is for slowing down or even stopping the progression. We have just signed an agreement with Novai to license their AI enhanced DARC biomarker system (subject to the usual legal caveats of completing the final license agreements) to try to do just that. For those interested in getting into their science I recommend their web site. While most people are unaware, if you have a family history of dry AMD you are significantly more at risk of developing the disease. Early detection however is rare. I believe as the public becomes educated about the genetic predisposition genes, and the familial risk, this will change, as it has say with breast cancer. We hope to use this biomarker to help "pre select" patients whose RPE cells (the cells that degenerate and eventually die in dry AMD) do in fact have the disease. Just because you have a family history doesn't mean you will definitely get the disease. Being able to identify patients who are at risk because of genetic factors AND patients who this biomarker shows have cells on that disease path, will greatly enhance the likelihood of success in a clinical trial. It could also help us identify progress (cells recovering and/or not getting worse) much earlier than conventional eye chart tests. This is both the promise and our hope for this technology. Of course this assumes that our therapy is effective even after identifying the right patients, a belief that can only be confirmed by controlled human clinical trials. We are currently working with our partners at NEI to incorporate this AI enhanced biomarker technology into our trial protocol, and i believe that this will ultimately become on of those "good news in medicine" stories.
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