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New gene therapy for blindness nears availability
Tuesday 20 October 2015Just 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.
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