of AcaM

 Dry form age-related macular degeneration is still lacking worldwide effective therapeutic drugs.

New hope for dry AMD ?

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 12:501, 2013

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible vision impairment among the elderly in developed countries. However, dry AMD, which in advanced forms involves atrophy of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and photoreceptor cells, accounts for ~90% of all AMD cases, and there are no specific drugs on the market.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a type of vision impairment among seniors caused by the deterioration of the retina. In general, macular degeneration can be subdivided into two main types: the early-stage "dry form"(90%) and the late-stage "wet form" (10%).  Most patients with early-stage "dry form" AMD will gradually develop into the late-stage "wet form.” Dry form AMD often occurs when the macula gets yellow deposits called drusen and retinitis pigmentosa; if symptoms advance, vision will gradually deteriorate. Currently, there are 20 million AMD patients in the United States and Europe combined. The therapeutic drug market is estimated at 30 billion dollars. It is estimated by the year 2020, the number of patients will increase rapidly to 30 million. In the 2010 report by the American Journal of Ophthalmology, researchers at University of California-Los Angeles found age and smoking are the most significant factors in causing macular degeneration. This macular degeneration increases with age and increases the likelihood of blindness. As an additional risk factor, there is an increasing number of smartphone users who are staring at their smartphones in bed after they turn off the lights, directing cell phone light right into the eyefor 30 minutes or more, which is likely to cause macular eye degeneration, resulting in rapid deterioration of vision. Electrical engineers who stare at the computer screen all day and anyone with high-degree myopia may also be at higher risk of macular degeneration.  Symptoms once more common in the elderly now also appear in the younger population, prompting a crisis of early blindness.

Since 2006, United States continued the AREDS (Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2) on lutein and other nutritional supplements in improving age-related macular degeneration. The early results of this study and other major ophthalmology studies have shown that for the elderly, moderate lutein supplement or foods containing this ingredient can effectively reduce the occurrence of macular degeneration.  But for dry form macular degeneration that has already taken place, it is an indisputable fact that there is still no effective medicine for this disease.  Due to the fact that any new medicine that can treat dry form macular degeneration will have a huge market, many international pharmaceutical companies have vied with each other in developing these drugs. For example, thecorticosteroid eye surgical implantation (Alimera Sciences), C3 inhibitors of complement eyes injection (Potentia Pharmaceuticals; Alcon), vitreous surgery placed neuroprotective agent (Neurotech Pharmaceuticals; Allergan), intravenous injection of monoclonal antibodies anti-amyloid protein (Pfizer; GlaxoSmithKline), vitreous injection C5 complements monoclonal antibodies (Genentech; Novartis), oral antioxidants (National Eye Institute), and oral inhibitors  of visual photochemistry circuit system (Acucela; Takeda). In clinical trials, few oral medications such as Acucela and Takeda, leading visual photochemistry circulation system inhibitors, have side effects like photographic and color distortion without optimistic prospects. For the medicines that are currently in clinical trials, patients can look forward to preventing further progression of the dry form macular degeneration.  However, it has remained difficult to find effective medicines to treat patients who already have advanced macular degeneration. This inhibition based rationale in drug development for macular degeneration becomes a bottleneck faced by the development of new drugs in the Western countries.

The AcaMed company’s R&D team have studied retinal macular degeneration for more than 30 years.  The study started with finding cures for the diabetic retinopathy of the former President of Taiwan. Seeking to improve cellular functions of retinal pigment epithelial cells, we have selected certain Chinese herbal medicines and functional foods that have the ability to improve vision from ancient traditional Chinese medicine books. We have also been using peroxide and light injury animal models for mimetic dry form macular degeneration, to prove that the ingredients in BrighT-101, for example, huangjing, black soybean, mungbean, shouwu, and cocoa - are capable of improving retinopathy of retinal function. These substances exhibit the ability to clear out the accumulation of the abnormal protein wastes or byproduct from visual photochemistry circuit systems by aging, injury or oxidation stress.  BrighT-101 is produced based on the traditional Chinese medicine approach of promoting cellular and body functions. Ours is a markedly different rationale than the rationale behind Western development of inhibitory drugs.  BrighT-101 is able to assist our retinal cells by getting rid of some accumulation of waste, allowing your vision to improve and thus upgrading the quality of your daily life. We believe this product will gradually be accepted by consumers. In recent years, more and more people have started taking lutein as a popular trend and many celebrities have made lutein a star among health food products.  Is lutein really able to solve various eye diseases as advertised? Is lutein really so magical? AcaMed company welcomes those customers who have tried all different "vision protection" supplements on the market, and were not satisfied with the expected "vision protection" promised, to try out our product BrighT-101. Wishing all members health and happiness!!!

http://www.acamed.com.tw/