it can be injected every two months. And Regeneron has priced the drug at $1,850 per injection. “All in all, we’re offering savings by only requiring half the number of injections, and by charging $100 less per injection,” Terifay says.
It’s too early to gauge how the insurance community will respond to the lower price point, Terifay says, but history proves that cost has been a major sticking point in the treatment of AMD. Ever since Genentech’s ranibizumab hit the market in 2006, some eye doctors have snubbed the drug in favor of using a tiny dose of one of Genentech’s cancer drugs, bevacizumab (Avastin), instead. That drug has a similar mechanism of action, but it can be purchased for $20 to $50 per injection for use in macular degeneration. “When we came up with our pricing, we wanted to be sensitive to the need to save the healthcare system money,” Terifay says. “We think we’re priced at a reasonable level.”
As Regeneron sends its new 70-person salesforce out to market the new drug, a host of biotech startups are investigating new methods to treat AMD. One of those companies is PanOptica, a Bernardsville, NJ-based startup that’s developing a VEGF-inhibiting eye drop. PanOptica was founded in 2009 by Martin Wax, an ophthalmologist and former research chief at eye-products company Alcon Laboratories, and Paul Chaney, a former executive of Eyetech, which developed one of the first AMD drugs, pegaptanib sodium injection (Macugen).
In September, at an eye conference in Rome, PanOptica presented promising data from an animal trial of its eye drop, which the company developed from an experimental cancer drug that it licensed from OSI Pharmaceuticals (now owned by Astellas U.S.). OSI had shelved the drug because it didn’t show much promise in cancer. “But it had a really good safety package,” Chaney says. “And when we looked at its features, we liked its potential to be developed as a drop.”
Chaney and Wax hope to start human trials of its AMD eye drop next year. PanOptica raised $30 million in December 2010 from SV Life Sciences, Third Rock Ventures, and Astellas. That funding should be enough to take the drop through early clinical trials, after which point the company may look for a Big Pharma partner, Chaney says.
If PanOptica’s treatment proves effective in humans, the company’s founders are confident the convenience factor will give them an edge in the market. “Put it in human terms,” Wax says. “You have a parent with AMD and your only option is an injection in the eye,” he says. “When you think in those terms, the need for a better mousetrap is very clear. We think an eye drop would be a game-changer.”
PanOptica isn’t the only New York area company working on AMD. In October, NYC-based Imagen Biotech raised $40 million and announced that it had started up with a plan to tackle several eye diseases, including wet AMD.
Regeneron’s Terifay says he’s well aware of both the promise and the challenges the competition will be facing. “We all have a great opportunity, but you have to prove your drug gets to the back of the retina and has an effect. That will be a challenge” for rivals, he says. Regeneron, meantime, has been expanding to prepare to enter such a competitive market. In the last five years, the company’s employee base has grown from 680 to 1,700, and most of the recent hires have been on the marketing side, Terifay says. Regeneron is also developing several other late-stage drug candidates.
Regeneron’s AMD drug began shipping on November 21, and the first patients have already been dosed, Terifay says. “We’re excited,” he says. “We think our market opportunity will be positive for a long time to come.”
