Eyegate Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: EYEG) saw its shares rise handily on Monday following positive top-line results from the company’s first-in-human pilot trial. Specifically, the trial is for the EyeGate Ocular Bandage Gel (OBG) for the acceleration of re-epithelialization of large corneal epithelial defects in patients having undergone photorefractive keratectomy (PRK).

For some brief background, OBG is a clear viscous hydrogel eye drop with a 0.75% concentration of CMHA-S hydrogel, capable of coating the ocular surface with little to no optical blur and designed to resist degradation under conditions present in the eye. The prolonged residence time of the bandage on the ocular surface, is believed to address the limitations of current non-cross-linked hyaluronic acid formulations.

Overall the results from the trial were very encouraging. In the arm of the study with patients subjected to OBG alone, 75% of subjects reached the primary endpoint of complete wound closure by day 3, versus 53.8% of patients that received the standard of care.

Based on these positive results, EyeGate plans to continue development with a double-masked, controlled trial evaluating OBG monotherapy against bandage contact lens (BCL) in the second quarter this year.

Dan Durrie, M.D., Clinical Professor and Director of Refractive Surgery Services at the University of Kansas Medical Center and a Principal Investigator of study commented:

The results of this pilot trial are extremely exciting, as Eyegate OBG not only showed safety and tolerability results, but also demonstrated encouraging signs of potential efficacy, with 9 of 12 subjects achieving complete closure by Day 3 and a significant reduction in average wound size just 24 hours after surgery. These data suggest that the product has the potential to provide significant benefit in the treatment of various types of corneal epithelial defects.

Shares of Eyegate were last trading up over 13% at $1.85, with a consensus analyst price target of $10.00 and a 52-week trading range of $1.11 to $5.10.

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