The transcript below has been edited for clarity.

Hi my name is Dr. Livia Brier and I am the director of development at Valitor. I’m excited to share with you the highlights from the paper I presented at ARVO on VLTR-559 for wet AMD. At Valitor, we are developing a multivalent conjugate platform technology that could enable a long-acting intravitreal delivery of an anti-VEGF therapeutic to treat wet AMD.

Our drug candidate VLTR-559 consists of a long chain of hyaluronic acid that has several dozen copies of a single domain anti-VEGF antibody attached to the polymer along its length. The elongated polymer structure of VLTR-559 extends its residence time in the vitreous humor. This allows it to remain bioactive in ocular tissues for extended durations after injection.

We are currently on track to achieve a reliable 6-month treatment interval for nearly all patients.

In my talk, I present our IND-enabling VLTR-559 preclinical package. First, we demonstrated that VLTR-559 was well-tolerated at the target clinical dose in a pilot primate study.

Second, we used the industry-standard model to evaluate drugs for wet AMD in mice to demonstrate that VLTR-559 is just as effective as aflibercept at reducing neovascular lesion size. This is an important predictor of anti-VEGF efficacy in patients.

Last, in a rabbit pharmacokinetics model, we determined that VLTR-559 has a 12.5 day half-life in vitreous humor. This is substantially longer than the 3 to 5 day half-lives for other conventional anti-VEGF biologics that have been evaluated in the same model.

We also demonstrated that VLTR-559 was present at high concentrations in the retina and sub-retinal tissues and that its potency was unchanged for months after administration.

We are really excited about these preclinical pharmacology results, and we believe VLTR-559 is on track to demonstrate superior durability with a reliable 6-month treatment protocol for patients with wet AMD. RP