MELBOURNE, Australia, Dec. 06, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Opthea Limited (ASX:OPT; NASDAQ:OPT), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapies to treat highly prevalent and progressive retinal diseases, announce a podium talk will be presented at the annual FLORetina congress, taking place in Rome, Italy from December 8-11, 2022.

Dr. Caroline Baumal, MD from the Tufts University School of Medicine, New England Eye Center, Boston, Massachusetts will present on OPT-302 combination therapy in wet AMD. The talk will include the design of the ongoing Phase 3 program which will assess the primary endpoint of superiority in mean Best Corrected Visual Acuity at 12 months versus ranibizumab (ShORe study) or aflibercept (COAST study) anti-VEGF-A monotherapy.

The details for the podium presentation are as follows:

About Opthea Limited

Opthea (ASX:OPT; Nasdaq:OPT) is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapies to address the unmet need in the treatment of highly prevalent and progressive retinal diseases, including wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD) and diabetic macular edema (DME). Opthea’s lead product candidate OPT-302 is in pivotal Phase 3 clinical trials and being developed for use in combination with anti-VEGF-A monotherapies to achieve broader inhibition of the VEGF family, with the goal of improving overall efficacy and demonstrating superior vision gains over that which can be achieved by inhibiting VEGF-A alone.

Inherent risks of Investment in Biotechnology Companies

There are a number of inherent risks associated with the development of pharmaceutical products to a marketable stage. The lengthy clinical trial process is designed to assess the safety and efficacy of a drug prior to commercialization and a significant proportion of drugs fail one or both of these criteria. Other risks include uncertainty of patent protection and proprietary rights, whether patent applications and issued patents will offer adequate protection to enable product development, the obtaining of necessary drug regulatory authority approvals and difficulties caused by the rapid advancements in technology. Companies such as Opthea are dependent on the success of their research and development projects and on the ability to attract funding to support these activities. Investment in research and development projects cannot be assessed on the same fundamentals as trading and manufacturing enterprises. Therefore, investment in companies specializing in drug development must be regarded as highly speculative. Opthea strongly recommends that professional investment advice be sought prior to such investments.

Authorized for release to ASX by Megan Baldwin, CEO & Managing Director