Imagine the surface of your eye is like a windshield that has lost its ability to repair its own cracks and scratches. This project finds existing medicines that can be repurposed to act like a 'repair kit' for the eye's nerves and stem cells. By using drugs already known to be safe, they can skip some of the long waiting periods usually required to get a new treatment to patients.
Current treatments for rare ocular surface diseases are either non-existent, prohibitively expensive, or cause severe side effects, leaving over 500,000 European patients with inadequate care.
Preservative-free eye drop and periocular formulations for Spironolactone, Aprepitant, and Losartan, and a clinical trial protocol for first-in-human testing.
If you are a drug developer dealing with high R&D costs and long regulatory timelines — this project developed a 'streams' approach for 6 existing drugs and 3 new compounds that short-circuits the development process to treat 7 rare eye diseases.
If you are a biotech firm dealing with the difficulty of delivering drugs to the ocular surface — this project developed preservative-free eye drop suspensions and subconjunctival formulations for compounds like Spironolactone and Losartan.
If you are a clinic dealing with 500k European patients who have inadequate or expensive treatment options for rare eye diseases — this project is conducting first-in-human trials to provide more effective, lower-cost therapeutic alternatives.
Based on available project data, specific pricing is not mentioned, but the project aims to replace current management options that are described as prohibitively expensive.
The project includes 4 industry partners and a subcontracting partner, FAREVA, specifically to develop formulations, suggesting a path toward industrial scalability.
Based on available project data, the project focuses on repurposing 6 existing drugs and developing 3 new compounds; specific licensing terms are not disclosed.
The 'streams' approach uses repurposed drugs to short-circuit lengthy and complex regulatory and drug development processes for faster clinical translation.
The project runs from 2023-05-01 to 2027-04-30, with first-in-human studies and clinical trials currently being initiated.
The consortium is highly balanced for translation, consisting of 10 partners across 9 countries. With a 40% industry ratio (4 industry partners, including 2 SMEs), the project is well-positioned to move from academic research to commercial product. The inclusion of a European patient organization ensures the developed therapeutics meet actual patient needs.
Contact the University of Galway research office regarding the RESTORE VISION project.
Contact us to identify licensing opportunities for the 9 therapeutic compounds under development.
