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Encouraging advances in therapies for Leber congenital amaurosis
Editas Medicine CRISPR therapy for CEP290 gene Editas Medicine, a company specialising in the development of gene editing therapies, has announced the recruitment of paediatric patients to the Brilliance trial. This phase 1/2 clinical trial began last year and is based on the CRISPR gene editing methodology to excise the intron mutation c.2991+1655A>G, which produces an aberrant messenger RNAs (see news on...
DBGen awarded an EASI-Genomics grant for innovative long-read sequencing of inherited retinal dystrophies
The Transnational Access Committee of the European Advanced infraStructure for Innovative Genomics (EASI-Genomics) has selected the project PID15251 submitted by DBGen Ocular Genomics in the third call for projects of this initiative. DBGen’s proposal has successfully passed the scientific and technical evaluation steps of this highly competitive call. EASI-Genomics is an initiative, funded with 10 million euros by the European Union through the Horizon...
Promising results for a first-in-class Usher syndrome IIA therapy
The Dutch biotechnology company ProQR has just presented (March 2021) the first results of a clinical trial, named Stellar, with QR-421a, an antisense oligonucleotide designed to stop vision loss or restore vision in Usher syndrome IIA and non-syndromic retinitis pigmentosa patients due to USH2A exon 13 mutations. The therapeutical approach aims to exclude the exon 13 coding region in the messenger RNA (exon skipping) and,...
LHON gene therapy affords sustained improvement in visual acuity paving the way to approval
The biopharma company GenSight Biologics, specialized in developing gene therapies for retinal degenerative diseases, recently published results of two Phase III clinical trials on the effect of LUMEVOQ gene therapy for Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) patients. In September 2020, GenSight requested approval of LUMEVOQ to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to treat LHON patients carrying a mutation in the ND4 mitochondrial gene. LHON is...
Optogenetic therapy to restore advanced vision loss in retinal dystrophies
Gene therapies currently under study for retinal dystrophies are administered when viable photoreceptor able to be rescued at the functional level still remain. Most therapies are gene-specific and, in some cases, mutation-specific. In advanced disease stages, when a large number of photoreceptor cells have degenerated, the probability of success of these therapies is very low. Therefore, researchers are exploring methodologies to...
Encouraging results from achromatopsia gene therapy trials
Achromatopsia is a disorder that affects one in every 30,000 people and is characterized by the partial or total absence of colour vision due to lack of function of cones, one type of retinal cells. Achromatopsia patients have other visual problems such as extreme sensitivity to light (photophobia), uncontrollable and involuntary eye movements (nystagmus) and decreased visual acuity. Achromatopsia is a...