Updates in Retinal Disease Care: Keeping an Eye on Emerging Anti-VEGF Therapies & Improved Outcomes

Agenda

I.       Welcome and Introduction 
II.      Current State of Retinal Disease Management
III.     Clinical Updates for New and Emerging Retinal Disease Therapies
IV.     Q & A Session and Activity Roundup

Target Audience

The intended audience for this educational activity is opthalmologists and clinicians who manage patients with retinal disease.

Program Overview

The prevalence of retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema is projected to rise dramatically in the coming decades with an aging population and the increasing prevalence of diabetes.

The availability of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapies has significantly improved outcomes for patients with retinal disease for over a decade. However, the need for frequent intravitreal injections required to obtain the best possible patient outcomes with anti-VEGF therapies has added to the patient burden associated with retinal disease management. This also led many clinicians and patients to opt for as-needed dosing intervals guided by optical coherence tomography results, which may be more expedient for patients but has also been associated with worsening of retinal disease and vision loss. Thus, an unmet need persists for more efficacious therapies with increased duration of response to minimize the number of injections required for the many patients with retinal disease. There are newly available therapeutic options, such as the port delivery system with ranibizumab and the dual anti-VEGF, anti-Ang-2 binding faricimab; along with several emerging, novel therapies including sustained-release anti-VEGF formulations, combination anti-VEGFs, and gene therapy.

This program will deliver much-needed, up-to-date information on evidence-based strategies for dosing available anti-VEGF therapies and for integrating newly approved therapies into practice; with reviews of current clinical data from emerging retinal disease therapies.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this activity, participants should be better able to:

• Assess risk/benefits of fixed, frequent dosing intervals versus as-needed dosing intervals for anti-VEGF therapies
• Select anti-VEGF dosing intervals that provide the best potential outcomes for patients with retinal disease
• Assess the safety and efficacy of recently approved and emerging retinal disease therapies