2021 Retina Pipeline: A View Into Ongoing Innovation [Interactive]

Watch as Peter K. Kaiser, MD, explains the poster and follow along with graphics below.

In designing the second edition of Retina Today’s pipeline poster for wet and dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), we focused largely on expanding the schematic used to illustrate the complement system. For many of us, the complement system is a relic of our medical training, something to be dusted off when conversation turns down a more erudite path. In the coming years, however, the complement system may well be key to unlocking therapies for dry AMD that could affect millions of patients.

In a way, we have attempted the impossible by illustrating the complement pathway. An artistic representation of a cascade that takes place on the cellular surface must (by virtue of graphic limitations) be depicted away from that surface, giving the impression that the events occur in some vacuous space between cells. They do not. Still, we know that our readers understand this and are even more certain that a detailed map of the complement system’s steps is more important than a strict biologic geography lesson.

This edition of this poster consists of more than just cosmetic changes. We eliminated failed drugs, added new therapeutic candidates, and enlarged the complement system illustration to include new therapeutic targets.

Meetings might be paused for the foreseeable future, but that doesn’t mean that education has stopped. Turn to this poster (and its digital interactive facsimile, found at bit.ly/retina-pipeline) to keep yourself sharp.

And remember: this poster is for you. Tear it out. Mark it up. Send us suggestions for how to improve it. We’re already thinking about ways to develop it for next year’s edition, and we need to hear from our audience about what works and what doesn’t.