Arctic Vision, a China-based clinical-stage ophthalmology company focuses on developing innovative therapies for pan-ocular diseases, has announced a new research collaboration with Prof. Christopher Leung, Head and Clinical Professor at the Department of Ophthalmology of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) for the discovery and development of novel neuroprotective therapies for glaucoma.

Currently, the most common therapeutic approaches aim to lower the intraocular pressure (IOP) to slow optic nerve degeneration. However, a significant portion of glaucoma patients suffer from progressive visual impairment despite adequate control of IOP. For that reason, there is an urgent need to prevent glaucoma-related blindness via new mechanisms.

Neuroprotection, in the form of non-IOP-related interventions to prevent or delay glaucomatous neurodegeneration, has been underscored to be an unmet need in the management of glaucoma ever since the 2010 World Glaucoma Association Consensus Meeting. 

However, no neuroprotective therapy has been approved for the treatment of glaucoma to date. This ground-breaking collaboration between Arctic Vision and HKU to discover new therapies with novel mechanisms of action marks a paradigm shift of the global research approaches to treatment of glaucoma.

Arctic Vision will sponsor this four-year collaboration, which will include the development of in vivo experimental glaucoma models and a Phase 1 clinical trial.