Integrin Peptide Therapy for Neovascular eye diseases

Integrin Peptide Therapy for Neovascular eye diseases

Integrin peptide therapy is a new way to treat neovascular diseases of the eye. They found that different types of integrin are associated with choroidal neovascularization and retinal neovascularization such as in wet macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and retinal vessels occlusions.

These new fragile blood vessels leak fluid causing retinal and macular edema also they blood easily causing vitreous, retinal and choroidal hemorrhage.

ALG-1001 is a small ( 1/1000th the size of a monoclonal antibody) anti-integrin oligopeptide that is developed by Allegro.

This molecule inhibits the formation of new blood vessels by four major ways:

1- It binds to all integrin receptors involved with the formation of new blood vessels.

2- It inhibits different pathways that are associated with new blood vessels formation, making the process to start the entire neovascularization longer.

They found that the benefits of this molecule on central macular thickness and visual acuity last for 3 months after that last dose.

3- It inhibits an enzyme called tyrosine kinase which is very important for the activation of vascular endothelial cells.

4-  It causes posterior vitreous detachment and vitreous liquefaction. Liquefied vitreous inhibits VEGF( Vascular endothelial growth factor) because it is more oxygenated and oxygen is a strong inhibitor of VEGF.

Combination of Anti-VEGF( Ranibizumab and Bevacizumab) and ALG-1001 showed 35% better benefits on central macular thickness and best corrected visual acuity than either drug alone.