Novartis buys private US-based pharma company, exapnds its ophtalmology pipeline

Novarits is expanding its ophthalmology pipeline as it secured the ownership of a US-based private company focused on treating long-sightedness.

Novartis said on Tuesday buying of Encore Vision from Texas adds a first-in-class disease modifying topical treatment for presbyopia to its ophthalmology pipeline, providing a potentially disruptive innovation to patients in a new therapeutic area of high unmet need. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval. The financial details of this transaction are not disclosed.

“There is a large need for innovative, effective and safe treatment options for people with presbyopia, and there is currently no disease-modifying treatment available at all,” said Vasant Narasimhan, Global Head, Drug Development and Chief Medical Officer, Novartis. “Novartis confirms its leadership in ophthalmology by entering another new therapy area. The addition of this topical disease modifying treatment to our portfolio, if successful, will provide affected people with a new option to improve and maintain their vision and quality of life.”

Novartis further praised Encore Vision’s lead investigational product, EV06. Novartis said it is a first-in-class topical treatment for presbyopia. Presbyopia is a common age-related loss of near distance vision characterized by a progressive inability to focus on objects nearby, making everyday activities – such as reading – challenging. It is estimated that more than 80% of adults over the age of 45 develop presbyopia, for which there are no safe, effective and well-tolerated topical treatments available at the moment, that could stop progression of or even reverse this condition.

Novartis also noted that in a phase I/II masked, placebo-controlled proof of concept study, 50 patients were treated daily for 90 days with topical EV06 and 25 patients with placebo. EV06 showed a significant difference to placebo in distant corrected near vision at all time points measured; at day 90, 82% of participants treated with EV06 had 20/40 near vision (or 0.30 LogMAR) versus 48% in the placebo group. Near vision of 20/40 allows for majority of near vision tasks in most people.