Key takeaways:
- A wide range of regenerative therapies for retinal diseases show promise for vision restoration.
- Access to these treatments will require a demonstration of their positive patient impact to insurance payers.
DENVER — Despite challenges for approval and access, regenerative therapies for retinal diseases may not be far away from becoming viable treatment options, according to a panel discussion at Eyecelerator@ARVO.
Allan C. Ho, MD, who co-moderated the panel, told Healio that there are still unmet needs from a patient perspective for those with retinal degenerations, even with approved therapies for age-related macular degeneration and geographic atrophy. However, several innovations in cell therapy and optogenetics, as well as technologies including the Prima subretinal implant, show promise in moving regenerative medicine in retina forward.
SriniVas R. Sadda, MD, FARVO, and Allan C. Ho, MD, co-moderated a panel at Eyecelerator@ARVO on regenerative therapies for vision restoration.
“These are things that we’ve been waiting our whole career for: The prospect of being able to offer vision restoration to patients,” SriniVas R. Sadda, MD, FARVO, co-moderator of the panel, told Healio. “We’re not quite there in terms of having these therapies approved and broadly available for the most part, but it was clear that there has been quite a bit of progress.”
Implementing these solutions will come with a number of challenges along the path to approval, including issues with accessibility and reimbursement.
“I was very excited to see that the companies who are invested in this space are thinking about that whole process all the way through, and that gives me real hope that this may really be around the corner for our patients,” Sadda told Healio.
In addition to demonstrating efficacy and safety to achieve regulatory approval, Sadda said that the next key step on the path to wider access to regenerative medicine is to demonstrate to insurance payers that these therapies are valuable for patients.
“It’s a really exciting time,” Ho told Healio. “Ophthalmology, and retina in particular, is grounded on incredible science.”
Sources/Disclosures
Source:
Ho AC, et al. Is vision improvement on the horizon for regenerative medicine? Presented at: Eyecelerator@ARVO; May 1, 2026; Denver.
Disclosures:
Ho reports having financial disclosures for 4DMT, AbbVie, Adverum, Atsena, Chengdu Kanghong Biotechnology, Eyevensys, Ikarovec, Janssen/Johnson & Johnson, Nanoscope Therapeutics, Neurotech Pharmaceuticals, Ocugen, Regenxbio and Vanotech. Healio could not confirm relevant disclosures for Sadda at the time of publication.
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