The human impact of ADOA

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10 years old

Patients are usually diagnosed in early childhood.

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30 years old

At first, patients lose their central vision and then their peripheral vision.

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50 years old

Patients are often declared legally blind at around 50 years of age, which significantly impacts their quality of life.

ADOA at a glance

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An urgent need to create treatments

ADOA affects 1 in every 35,000 people.1,2

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ADOA is a monogenic disease

ADOA is caused by a mutation in one of the patient’s two copies of the OPA1 gene in the retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) that form the optic nerve of the eye.

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The median age of ADOA onset is 7 years of age

80% of patients experience symptoms before 10 years of age.1

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Loss of central vision

Patients with ADOA initially experience central vision loss and then peripheral vision loss.

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PYC’s drug candidate, PYC-001, seeks to stop disease progression

ADOA patients have a mutation in one copy of the OPA1 gene – this leads to their retinal cells producing half as much OPA1 protein as is required for normal function. PYC-001 seeks to restore the production of OPA1 protein in patients, therefore rescuing function of retinal cells and thus stopping disease progression.

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Encouraging results

PYC’s therapy, PYC-001, seeks to increase OPA1 protein expression in the RGCs to restore cell function and is currently in a Phase 1 clinical trial.

Mechanism of action of PYC-001 for ADOA

This video provides an overview of the ADOA disease and the mechanism of action for PYC's candidate PYC-001.

References

  1. Yu-Wai-Man P, Griffiths PG, Burke A et al. The prevalence and natural history of dominant optic atrophy due to OPA1 mutations. Ophthalmology. 2010 Aug;117(8):1538-46, 1546.e1. doi: 10.1016/j.ophtha.2009.12.038. ↩︎
  2. Amati-Bonneau P, Milea D, Bonneau D et al. OPA1-associated disorders: phenotypes and pathophysiology. Int J Biochem Cell Biol. 2009 Oct;41(10):1855-65. doi: 10.1016/j.biocel.2009.04.012. ↩︎