New dry eye drug, Tavilermide in phase 3 of medical trials

[MGD30]

Its good to see that there are more dry eye drugs coming to the market. I feel like right now all we have is restatsis and it doesnt seem to help those of us with more severe pain. Im hoping Tavilermide will be better and that there are more drugs to come.

"Tavilermide is a small cyclic peptidomimetic of NGF, a naturally occurring protein in the eye responsible for the maintenance of corneal nerves and epithelium. Tavilermide is differentiated from other investigational therapies in dry eye disease because it induces the production of mucin, a naturally occurring component of the tear film, and works upstream prior to inflammation."

http://www.bloomberg.com/research/st...capId=24949910

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02634853

[DryInDenver]

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

It sounds like it could be helpful. It looks like the study is supposed to end July 2016 so hopefully we'll have some good news this summer.

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02634853

[Waesk]

Its good to see that there are more dry eye drugs coming to the market. I feel like right now all we have is restatsis and it doesnt seem to help those of us with more severe pain. Im hoping Tavilermide will be better and that there are more drugs to come.

"Tavilermide is a small cyclic peptidomimetic of NGF, a naturally occurring protein in the eye responsible for the maintenance of corneal nerves and epithelium. Tavilermide is differentiated from other investigational therapies in dry eye disease because it induces the production of mucin, a naturally occurring component of the tear film, and works upstream prior to inflammation."

http://www.bloomberg.com/research/st...capId=24949910

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02634853

Looks like the study is conpletrd any more news on this?

[DryInDenver]

Not much to report that I can find. However, in November 2016 Allergen said "we have an option agreement with Mimetogen for tavilermide in dry-eye disease. The first two Phase 3 trials have been completed, and the Mimetogen team are presently evaluating the data." Based on news reports, I think they spent $50 million on that option, a sizeable sum that would indicate some level of optimism on the drug's efficacy.

Since then Allergen has started the launch of the Truetear device (which I'm very interested in giving a try), but they have not made any more mentions of tavilermide that I have found. Allergen is heavily focused on the dry eye space, so if they believe it worked well enough to market I think they will eventually get it through the FDA and start marketing it.

Allergen is also the maker of Restasis which has been a successful drug for them and is helping to drive earnings growth. I see that as good in that it has guided vast amounts of their massive resources into dry eye. However I also see a potential conflict of interest when evaluating drugs such as tavilermide. To be a high priority, it would help if tavilermide is a product that would be used in conjunction with Restasis. This is the case with the Truetear device that they believe (correctly I think) will be used in conjunction with Restasis, not instead of Restasis. If tavilermide is a substitute/competitor to Restasis Allergen risks spending a bunch of money on a product launch that ends up canabilizing their own sales. If that is the case I could see business strategy guiding the timing of a launch, such a new product from a competitor, lapsing of the Restasis patent in 2024, or falling Restasis revenues. To that end, maybe I'll help motivate them by not buying Restasis anymore - I've been using Restasis in only one eye for the last 4 months and am not able to discern a difference between my two eyes (I have lasik induced dry eye, I feel like folks like me have less success with Restasis but don't have any real data to back that up).