Safety Study of iSONEP (Sonepcizumab/LT1009) to Treat Neovascular Age-related Macular Degeneration

S1P modulates the AMD-associated processes of angiogenesis, inflammation and fibrosis. A potential strategy for treating choroidal neovascularization associated with AMD is to reduce the biologically available extracellular levels of S1P. iSONEP is highly selective for S1P and binds with picomolar affinity. Lpath proposes that iSONEP would deprive many cell types (fibroblasts, pericytes, vascular endothelial cells and inflammatory) of important growth and survival factors thus targeting the multiple maladaptive processes of exudative AMD that ultimately result in the loss of photoreceptors, their supporting cells, and visual acuity. Targeting simultaneously multiple components of the choroidal neovascular response is a novel approach and has the potential to be more potent than "single-targeted" therapeutics such as anti-VEGF therapies.