Just a few years ago gene therapy to cure blindness was thought impossible. But in science, achieving the impossible is often just a matter of time….

A human engineered virus which successfully delivers vision-restoring genes has been developed and tested to such great effect that an American pharmaceutical company is poised to request marketing approval from the US Food & Drug Administration sometime in 2016.

The request from Spark Technology comes at the conclusion of a phase three trial of the treatment which has significantly improved navigation in dim and bright settings for a number of individuals who were virtually blind before receiving the therapy. Researchers claim that a single retinal injection could improve visual acuity for several years at a time. The ramifications for those with a wide range of inherited retinal diseases are enormous.

Sources:

1. www.blindness.org:
   A Leap Forward: Spark Therapeutics Seeks FDA Approval for its Vision-Restoring Gene Therapy.
2. Irv Arons: :
   What’s New in Gene Therapy for Ophthalmology?.