Brolucizumab as treatment of wet age-related maculopathy

Given the success in stabilizing vision with current anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) options, one main target for future anti-VEGF drug development includes creating medications with longer durations of action. Achieving this goal will decrease the number of overall injections and follow-up visits required to ensure better patient compliance. The smallest anti-VEGF created so far is brolucizumab (Beovu; Novartis). It is a 26-kDa IgG single-chain antibody fragment that delivers 11 times more anti-VEGF per injection than aflibercept. Brolucizumab was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in late 2019 for the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration, and has been also approved for the same indication in Japan and the European Union in 2020. In this article, we compare brolucizumab to current FDA-approved anti-VEGF treatments, address the studies associated with brolucizumab, discuss brolucizumab’s side effects, and conclude with recommendations.