A Combination Therapy for Neovascular Eye Diseases

Angiogenesis is a leading cause of eye problems among over 50s – including blindness. Conventional treatments have serious side effects, making them deeply unpleasant for patients. A new peptide therapy could provide an alternative.

Syndecans are a family of transmembrane receptors that Queen Mary researchers led by Dr James Whiteford have extensively investigated for their role in promoting angiogenesis and for their potential as promising therapeutic targets. Two small peptide regions, QM107 and QM111, based on fragments from syndecan-2 and syndecan-3 respectively, show exciting results when used alone and even better when used together in combination.

This approach is a completely different mechanism to existing therapies and may therefore avoid the same side effects of current treatments.

A patent has been filed and we’re actively looking for partners to license this technology to develop commercially.