A Primer on PULSAR | Keyvan Koushan, M.D., ASRS 2023

The PULSAR trial testing higher doses of Eylea (aflibercept) given a longer intervals is one of the most watched trials in the world of retinal disease. This morning’s session on wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) at the American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS) annual scientific meeting in Seattle featured four presentations of data from the trial.

Keyvan Koushan, M.D., a retina specialist at the Toronto Retina Institute and a lecturer in the Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences at the University of Toronto, is presenting data from subgroup analyses of the trial.

In an interview with Managed Healthcare Executive prior to the meeting, Koushan briefly described the design of the PULSAR trial and the positive results that have been reported so far.

Eylea and other anti-VEGF treatments have transformed the treatment of wet AMD and other retinal diseases, but Koushan noted that the difficulties of the frequent injections.

“We have a problem with neovascular (wet) macular degenerations and that’s the treatment burden. A lot of patients have to come to clinics every month or every two months. With new medications coming to the market or high doses of existing medications like aflibercept that are being studied in PULSAR, our hope and goal is to see if we can space out these injections more and more and hence reduce the treatment burden,” Koushan said.