2020/10/09
Keio University School of Medicine
A research group from the Department of Ophthalmology, Keio University School of Medicine, led by Professor Kazuo Tsubota, Senior Lecturer Toshihide Kurihara, Visiting Researcher Yohei Tomita, and Deokho Lee (a first-year student in the Doctoral Programs at the Graduate School of Medicine), in collaboration with Kowa Company, Ltd. (headquartered in Nagoya City), has confirmed that the antihyperlipidemic drug pemafibrate (Parmodia®, Kowa Company, Ltd.), a selective peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (PPARα) modulator, exhibits functional neuroprotective effects on the retina in a mouse model of diabetes.
Furthermore, they found that pemafibrate exerts its functional neuroprotective effect on the retina by increasing blood concentrations of fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21), which in turn maintains the expression of retinal synaptophysin.
These research findings represent a new discovery, in addition to the anti-angiogenic effects of pemafibrate in the retina reported by the same laboratory in 2019. With further development, it is expected to become a therapeutic agent that can prevent blindness caused by diabetic retinopathy, a condition prevalent worldwide.
These research findings were published in the online edition of the interdisciplinary general journal "International Journal of Molecular Sciences" on August 28, 2020 (GMT).
For the full press release, please see below.