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Opthea Limited (ASX: OPT) is into biotechnology. The company is into the development of a novel biologic therapy, OPT-302, which is used for the treatment of eye diseases, by blocking two members of the vascular endothelial growth factor family VEGF-C and VEGF-D, which is a primary cause for the blood vessels to grow and leak. The vascular leakage and the aberrant blood vessel growth are among key eye diseases including wet age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema. The company concluded a phase of a clinical trial related to the US investigating OPT-302 in wet AMD patients.
On 8 March 2019, the group announced that OPT stock is added in All Ordinaries, effective from March 18, 2019 as per March 2019 Quarterly Rebalance of the S&P/ASX Indices.
On 7 March 2019, the company has informed to the market about its ongoing phase 2b trial study of OPT-302 in wet age which is related to wet AMD patients and reaffirmed its positive recommendation for the 2nd time that the trial continues without modification.
The Data and Safety Monitoring Board is a committee of clinical research experts which includes ophthalmic surgeons, held a second meeting which was pre-planned. A meeting was held in order to review the safety data available from 366 patients who have been enrolled in the Phase 2b case study.
Dr Megan Baldwin, the CEO and Managing Director of the company said that the company is happy with the independent assessment of the safety and tolerability of OPT-302 and the overall progress made by the company on the Phase 2b development program. The Phase 2b trial outcome of wet AMD will be given by the company going forward, which will be a great clinical achievement. The outcome is expected in the 4th quarter of 2019.
Any issues have not been identified related to safety in AMD patients who took OPT-302 in combination with Lucentis® by the Data and Safety Monitoring Board did not identify. The company consistently supported that the study was as per plans with a third, and likely final, meeting of the DSMB will be held after the dose completion.
The Phase 2b wet AMD trial of the company is a two-fold, controlled study which is random in nature. It has been designed to find out whether there is any clinical improvement over a 6-months period from the addition of OPT-302 to Lucentis® therapy.
At the time of writing (12 March 2019, AEST 02:37 PM), the stock of Opthea Limited is trading at $0.760 with a market capitalisation of ~$189.56 million. The stock has generated a YTD return of 33.33% and posted returns of 31.03%, 35.71% and -1.30% over the last six months, three months and one-month period, respectively. It had a 52-week high price of $0.80 and a 52-week low price of $0.415 with an average trading volume of ~187,992.
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