What matters most? Acuity or Duration? What if Opthea was wrong?, page-13

... “More than 11 million Americans are living with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), an eye disease of elderly individuals that causes a progressive loss of the central vision that is needed to drive, read, recognize faces, and see the world in color.¹

Up to 200,000 Americans are newly diagnosed with AMD each year.²

According to the World Health Organization, 196 million people have AMD globally, including 10.4 million people with moderate to severe vision impairment or blindness.³

Due to an aging population, the global burden of AMD is expected to rise to more than 243 million cases in 2030.”


That’s from a report published last Friday on “Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration: Treatment Advances to Reduce the Injection Burden”... with the author, Dr Caroline Baumal, previewing things that could alter the future treatment landscape including anti-VEGF biosimilars . (Opthea is one of these*)
https://www.ajmc.com/journals/suppl...tment-advances-to-reduce-the-injection-burden

But while it mentions several products by name, it does not include Opthea.
It also notes “biosimilars for ranibizumab and aflibercept are expected to reach the US market after ranibizumab and aflibercept patents expire in June 2020 and November 2023, respectively.^101,102“

-Can someone who knows the field please advise what impact, if any, the expired patents might have on Opthea?
They sound important given the value of the market?
...Maybe new competitors would seek to include OPT-302 in their ranzibizumab-like treatments?

Thanks in advance and
cheers : )

*See Opthea’s January 2020 presentation [here] for comment noting OPT-302 has potential to improve clinical EFFICACY by targeting VEGF-C/D;
“• Current & growing market opportunity of $10B+ worldwide
• OPT-302 being developed for use in combination with any of the existing anti-VEGF-A agents, biosimilars
or novel therapies in development for wet AMD and DME
• A novel approach seeking to provide additional visual acuity benefit over standard of care
• Broad development opportunity in wet AMD, DME, RVO and other retinal pathologies”