Eyepoint said Monday that patients administered its experimental treatment for a common cause of age-related blindness failed to maintain vision with less frequent injections compared to a standard treatment — meaning a Phase 3 clinical trial had fallen short of its primary goal.
The study setback imperiled Eyepoint’s plans to seek regulatory approval for the drug, Duravyu, and caused its stock price to plummet. Shares of Ocular Therapeutix, the maker of a competing eye treatment that will be submitted to the Food and Drug Administration later this year, rose in reaction.
Both Eyepoint and Ocular are developing drugs to maintain vision in people with wet age-related macular degeneration, or wet AMD; those drugs can be injected into the eye less frequently than currently approved treatments.
