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PYC Therapeutics (ASX: PYC) adds six new medicines to retinal drug development

Health Care
ASX:PYC      MCAP $433.7M
03 February 2020 15:00 (AEST)

Drug development company, PYC Therapeutics (PYC) has added six new precision medicines to its retinal drug development pipeline.

These new medicines were developed by Vision Pharma, a subsidiary of PYC, which combines the expertise of PYC and Lions Eye Institute (LEI).

Expanding the company’s retinal drug pipeline highlights the power of combining LEI’s understanding of retinal diseases with PYC’s ability to design and deliver RNA therapeutics.

RNA therapeutics are new, innovative high-impact medicines.

A retinal disorder or disease affects this very important tissue in the eye, which, in turn, can affect vision to the point of blindness.

Risk factors for retinal diseases might include aging, having diabetes or other diseases, eye trauma, and family history.

Building on its lead program, Retinitis Pigmentosa, the expanded pipeline targets a broad set of retinal diseases.

The specific target the company is focusing on remains in confidence, while it finalises the intellectual property protection for these new programs.

“The relatively short amount of time required to design a new RNA therapeutic once the target opportunity has been identified is a major advantage of this class of drugs,” the company told the market.

PYC expects to progress a subset of these opportunities through to an IND-enabling decision by the end of 2020.

As the company progresses its Retinitis Pigmentosa, it continues to explore other areas where it can leverage its growing capability in precision medicines.

Precision medicine is an approach to patient care that allows doctors to select treatments that are most likely to help patients based on a genetic understanding of their disease.

PYC is down 1.72 per cent on the market today, trading at 5.7¢ per share at 1:09 pm AEDT.

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