Biotech stock PYC doses first patient in rare blindness-causing disease trial

Biotech player PYC Therapeutics (ASX:PYC) has dosed its first patient in a clinical trial seeking to ameliorate symptoms of Autosomal Dominant Optic Atrophy (ADAO).

The condition is one which causes blindness and is commonly believed to be passed down from parents to children. For all intents and purposes, the disease is rare.

Blindness often occurs in the patients’ twenties according to at least one author; PYC has been developing a drug of interest designed to treat the condition which it estimates affects one in 35,000 people.

On Friday, the company officially flagged its commencement of human trials.

Conducting a Single Ascending Dose (SAD) study, the company is currently testing that drug in an 18-month clinical data run.

The company is intending to shape up safety credentials; provide data for a larger scaled up study in the first half of next year, and, for a larger yet trial in 2026.

Notably, PYC’s drug – called “PYC-001” – has been noted as an emerging drug of interest by the US healthcare regulator FDA. Currently, there are no real treatments for ADAO.

PYC-001 is described on the company’s website as a “disease-modifying drug” which is ultimately an RNA therapy – RNA being the second component to human genetic coding alongside DNA.

The treatment is injected directly into the eye in what is known as an intravitreal injection.

“PYC today announces that the first ADOA patient enrolled in its Single Ascending Dose study of PYC-001 has now received their initial dose of the drug candidate. The patient has received a 3 µg dose of PYC-001 in one eye via intravitreal administration,” the company wrote on Friday.

PYC last traded at 18.5cps.

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