Aequus Pharmaceuticals Inc said Dr Robert Koenekoop has joined the company as a medical and clinical consultant on inherited retinal diseases, and specifically to support Aequus’ previously-announced collaboration with reVision Therapeutics Inc for the product REV-0100, a potential therapy for Stargardt disease.
Dr Koenekoop, a pediatric ophthalmologist, has more than 25 years of national and international basic and clinical research expertise in ophthalmology, in both children and adults.
“Stargardt macular dystrophy and all the other inherited retinal degenerations were deemed untreatable by the discoverers of these diseases and many generations of clinical teachers and researchers in this field,” Dr Koenekoop said in a statement.
READ: Aequus Pharmaceuticals and reVision Therapeutics in collaboration to develop therapy for Stargardt disease
“It is very exciting after all these years of seeing patients’ vision decline, that now for the first time we are seeing stabilization and even improvements in vision with some of the experimental agents. I am thrilled that Aequus has made this decision to collaborate on studying REV-0100 safety and efficacy in patients,” he added.
Aequus noted that REV-0100 is a potential therapy for patients with Stargardt disease, an inherited form of macular degeneration causing central vision loss, which is designed to bind and clear a toxic lipid called lipofuscin that leads to cell death and retinal degeneration.
It added that REV-0100 has the potential to reduce lipofuscin levels in the retina.
The company said there are no other known products in development that remove accumulated lipofuscin through this mechanism of action and no other approved treatment for Stargardt disease.
Aequus Pharmaceuticals is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing high-quality, differentiated products.
The Vancouver-based company takes medications that are already available in the US or elsewhere and licenses or acquires the Canadian rights, then takes the clinical data that supported that approval and works with Health Canada, Canada’s national health system, to get them approved and commercialized in Canada.
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