Aviceda Announces Dosing of First Patient With AVD-104, a Novel Glyco-Mimetic Nanoparticle for the Treatment of GA

Aviceda Therapeutics announced the dosing of its first patient with AVD-104 in its phase 2 SIGLEC trial by Ashkan Abbey, MD, of Texas Retina Associates in Dallas.

This lead intravitreal asset is a novel glycan-coated nanoparticle, supported by a uniquely strong preclinical in vivo efficacy and safety profile, used for the treatment of geographic atrophy (GA) secondary to age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to Aviceda. 

“AVD-104 is a potentially transformative targeted approach for patients with GA due to AMD,” David Callanan, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Aviceda, said in a company news release. “AVD-104 attacks two fundamental processes in GA by modulating critical inflammatory pathways through the inhibition of retinal macrophage inflammatory activity and repolarization of activated macrophages to their resolution states, and, through inhibition of complement cascade amplification. Based on this dual mechanism and the exquisite selectivity and preclinical potency of AVD-104, we believe it could provide a profound benefit for patients in dire need of new therapies. We have designed our phase 2 trial to move efficiently through dose escalation and to increase the chances of seeing early signals of clinical activity.”

“I am thrilled to get to the clinic with this first-in-class new drug, and its powerful mechanisms of action that focus on converting activated macrophages to their resolution states, as well as inhibiting complement activation, to safely achieve the next level of efficacy in treating GA from AMD," said Tarek Hassan, MD, Aviceda’ s Chief Development Officer. "Soon we look to be able to modulate the inflammatory activity of most immune cells with our HALOS (High-Affinity Ligands of Siglecs) platform technology and thereby specifically target other therapeutic areas with unmet needs in immunology, fibrosis, neurology, and others.”

Visit https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ (NCT05839041) to learn more about the SIGLEC trial.