Pitch 1-2 : Development of world's first therapeutic drug for Dry AMD

[Summary]

Dry age-related macular degeneration or AMD is a common eye condition that reckons to be the prime cause for vision loss among people aged 50 years and above. AMD results in damage of the macula, which leads to the formation of central vision. With progression of AMD, blank spots develop in the center vision. Till date, two types of AMD have been come to the limelight, i.e., Dry AMD and Wet AMD.

This session talks about a start-up that believes in developing a new medicine for treating Dry AMD. The start-up firm has emerged through collaborative effort from the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences in Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University. Research has been focused on dry AMD due to its high incidence, accounting for around 122 million patients worldwide. This gives pace to an intended market growth of $30 billion by 2024, which will be nine times bigger than the wet AMD drug market.

The research team has confirmed using in combination with drusen to effectively deal with the suppressing activity of Event X, which plays a crucial role in determining the expiry of the component, drusen. The developed drug has proved its efficacy in both in vitro and in vivo studies and is in the process of obtaining patents for the procedure.

[Mentors' comments]

　" Is it well established that the expression of drusen is causal to the macular degeneration of in the dry form or could it simply be an effect?" Dr. Laura Holberger, BioLabs

　" if you're not be successful for getting investment for $30 million what happen? What is your plan B?"Mr. Shogo Nakamori, PAREXEL International

[Profile]

Mr. Hirose is the manager of business development for AMD project in the incubation program, Kyoto University. He is also the CEO of Strategic consulting company. He also has 6 years expeirence as clinical scientist (planning and management of clinical study), Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.