Following the results from Apellis Pharmaceuticals’ Phase III ‘DERBY and OAKS’ study of APL-2 and the post hoc analysis from IVERIC BIO’s Phase III GATHER 1 clinical trial for Zimura, which provided a positive outlook for geographic atrophy (GA) patients by demonstrating clinically significant reduction in lesion growth, leading data and analytics company GlobalData highlights that—while there are currently no approved therapies for GA—there are a number of innovative therapies in early-stage development.

Geographic atrophy is a chronic progressive degeneration of the macula, a part of the retina at the back of the eye. According to GlobalData’s recently published report, ‘Age-Related Macular Degeneration Market Size and Trend Report’, there were 604,497 number of diagnosed prevalent cases of GA estimated in the 7MM and this number is expected to reach 743,178 in 2031.

Vinie Varkey, Pharmaceutical Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “The announcements by Apellis Pharmaceuticals and IVERIC BIO have raised hopes that the first wave of therapies for GA patients are being ushered in. APL-2 is anticipated to be the first therapy to receive an approval for GA in 2022, followed by Zimura’s approval anticipated in 2023. While both these therapies target the complement system, although different components of it, the first-to-market label anticipated for APL-2 is expected to hand this therapy a first-mover advantage. According to the aforementioned report from GlobalData, the GA market in expected to reach a value of $4.0 billion in 2031 in the 7MM.

GlobalData’s report also notes that there are several innovations being made in the early-stage pipeline. According to GlobalData’s Pharma Intelligence Centre, there are three cell therapies and two gene therapies in early-stage development for GA.

However, it is early days for these in-development therapies, and features such as side-effect profiles, pricing, efficacy, and frequency of administration will ultimately determine the scale of success.”

Varkey continues: “A successfully approved gene therapy in the GA space would be a pivotal event and create a paradigm shift in how GA is treated. Not only are gene therapies typically one-time treatments, but the proposition of replacing damaged retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells with new, healthy, and functional RPE cells is currently unheard of, and would certainly transform the treatment landscape for AMD on the whole and GA in particular.”