Faricimab: First Approval

Declarations Funding The preparation of this review was not supported by any external funding. Authorship and Conflict of interest During the peer review process the manufacturer of the agent under review was offered an opportunity to comment on the article. Changes resulting from any comments received were made by the authors on the basis of scientific completeness and accuracy. M. Shirley is a salaried employee of Adis International Ltd/Springer Nature, and declares no relevant conflicts of interest. All authors contributed to the review and are responsible for the article content. Ethics approval, Consent to participate, Consent to publish, Availability of data and material, Code availability Not applicable.
Additional information about this Adis Drug Review can be found here.

Abstract Faricimab (faricimab-svoa; Vabysmo™) is a bispecific antibody that binds to and inhibits both vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A and angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2). Administered by intravitreal injection, faricimab is being developed by Roche/Genentech for use in the treatment of retinal vascular diseases. In January 2022 faricimab received its first approvals, in the USA, for use in the treatment of patients with neovascular (wet) age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) or diabetic macular edema (DME). Faricimab is also currently under regulatory review in the EU and Japan for use in nAMD and DME. Phase III clinical development of faricimab for use in the treatment of nAMD, DME, and macular edema due to retinal vein occlusion is continuing in multiple other countries worldwide. This article summarizes the milestones in the development of faricimab leading to these first approvals for nAMD and DME in the USA.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022