Merck’s eye-drug matches Lucentis in vision improvement but raises safety concerns

Merck reported results from its Phase 2b/3 BRUNELLO trial of remigromig, a Wnt-pathway agonist for diabetic macular edema.

The drug achieved non-inferior improvement in best-corrected visual acuity at week 52 compared with Roche’s anti-VEGF therapy Lucentis, meeting the primary efficacy endpoint.

However, the trial identified higher incidences of proliferative diabetic retinopathy, vitreous hemorrhage and treatment discontinuations in the remigromig arms, prompting safety concerns.

Merck described the drug as generally well tolerated but did not release detailed safety data, leaving analysts uncertain about its differentiated profile.