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Ocular Therapeutix wet AMD drug Axpaxli tops Eylea in study

Adam Feuerstein is a senior writer and biotech columnist, reporting on the crossroads of drug development, business, Wall Street, and biotechnology. He is also a co-host of the weekly biotech podcast The Readout Loud and author of the newsletter Adam’s Biotech Scorecard. You can reach Adam on Signal at stataf.54.

Ocular Therapeutix said Tuesday that its experimental treatment, called Axpaxli, maintained vision with less frequent injections compared to a standard treatment for patients with a common cause of age-related blindness — achieving the primary goal of a late-stage clinical trial. 

However, the difference in the durability of treatment between Axpaxli and the active control in the study was narrower than investors expected — a finding that may spark debate about Axpaxli’s commercial potential in wet age-related macular degeneration, where effective drugs are already approved.

In the Phase 3 study, 74% and 66% of participants administered a single eye injection of Axpaxli maintained their vision for nine months and one year without further interventions compared to 56% and 44% of participants treated with a low dose of Eylea, an approved drug from Regeneron Pharma at the same time points, Ocular reported in a press release. 

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