Dr. Allen C. Ho has been appointed as chief medical advisor of Dallas-based Nanoscope Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing gene therapies for retinal degenerative diseases.
The company said Ho will help define the strategy of developing its gene mutation-agnostic therapies. Ho is attending surgeon and director of retina research at Wills Eye Hospital and co-director of the Wills Eye Hospital Retina Service.
“As a world-renowned retina specialist and leader in innovative treatments for retinal diseases, [Dr. Ho’s] insight will be invaluable to Nanoscope,” Co-Founder and CEO Sulagna Bhattacharya said in a statement. “MCO-010 has the potential to be the first gene therapy available for patients with advanced retinitis pigmentosa (RP), and Dr. Ho’s contributions will help ensure that potential. We also look forward to adding his perspective to our development of MCO-010 for Stargardt disease, building upon the promising results of our Phase 2 STARLIGHT clinical trial.”
Ho maintains special interests in macular diseases, diabetic retinopathy, surgical retinal diseases and clinical trials investigating new treatments for vitreoretinal diseases including gene and cell therapies and new surgical drug delivery devices and techniques.
“I look forward to working even more closely with the team members and leadership at Nanoscope who have been working on ambient light sensitive optogenetic strategies for retinal diseases over the past decade,” Ho said. “The recent release of their two-year Phase 2b RESTORE Trial data is an important moment for the retina community and I am pleased to help deliver this transformational treatment to serve those suffering from advanced RP.”
“Further, I’m also excited about the Nanoscope pipeline and translational potential of image-guided non-viral laser delivery of MCO-020 in improving vision in patients with geographic atrophy secondary to age-related macular degeneration,” Ho added.
Ho’s experience includes collaborative translational and clinical trial clinical research with expertise in study design, methodological testing, data analyses, surgical instrumentation and procedure development, execution and communication of these studies and their study results, and commercialization focusing on patient access to care, Nanoscope said.
He has served on the US Food and Drug Adminstration Ophthalmic Device Panel, American Academy of Ophthalmology Innovation Task Force, AAO Ophthalmic Retina Technology Assessment Committee, AAO Retina Measures Group, AAO IRIS Registry Committee and is a leader of Eyecelerator, the largest ophthalmic innovation meeting in the world, Nanoscope said.
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