Q&A: Priya S. Vakharia, MD, shares insight into the Phase 2 ARCHER trial for GA

Photo of Priya S. Vakharia, MD, taken at Retina World Congress held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Priya S. Vakharia, MD, a retina specialist at Retina Vitreous Associates of Florida in Tampa Bay, presented findings from the ARCHER trial investigating geographic atrophy (GA) treatment for dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) during the 2025 Retina World Congress annual meeting.

Note: The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

Ophthalmology Times: You presented on the ARCHER trial here at Retina World Congress. Can you give us a few highlights from this presentation?

Priya S. Vakharia, MD: The ARCHER trial was a phase 2 trial that was looking at the treatment of geographic atrophy (GA), secondary to dry [age-related] macular degeneration. In this trial, patients were randomized to either get ANX007 monthly, ANX007 every other month, or sham monthly, or sham every other month. What I presented today at Rentina World Congress was actually looking at a key secondary endpoint in these patients, which is the 15 letter loss of vision, and doing a number needed to treat analysis, looking to see how many patients you would need to treat in order to prevent 1 case of vision loss. So just to kind of remind the listeners about the trial, the primary endpoint was change in GA lesion growth, which the ARCHER trial did not meet that primary endpoint. But in the ARCHER trial, this key secondary endpoint of 15 letter loss of vision actually showed a signal, and it showed that patients who received ANX007, monthly and every other month, actually lost vision less frequently than patients who received sham. So when you look at the number needed to treat analysis, it showed that for every 7 patients that you treated, you would save 1 patient from advanced vision loss, giving you a number needed to treat of 7.

OT: When discussing the number needed to treat, can you provide some context around how we should interpret this value?

Vakaria: When we talk about number needed to treat, one of the questions I had was, well, what does a number needed to treat of 7 mean? What's the clinical significance of that? And I think that you can look at other therapies that we use a lot in medicine, such as statin therapy. So statin therapy has a number needed to treat of 125 and aspirin therapy has a number needed to treat of 333. So this kind of puts it in perspective for medications that we, you know, maybe we don't prescribe, but primary care doctors prescribe almost routinely, and it puts that number needed to treat of 7 into perspective.

OT: What do you wish was more understood about GA by all those caring for patients with GA?

Vakharia: So I think the thing that we are increasingly realizing is treating GA earlier, before it becomes visually significant, is actually way better. We know that the rates of progression for extra foveal disease is higher than for foveal involvement, and to try to catch those patients earlier is helpful. So I think the biggest thing I would wish is that even if there's a patient with extra foveal disease who may not be symptomatic, to get them in just to see us so we can talk about treatment options.

OT: As we look toward the future of ophthalmology, where do you hope the field is going?

Vakharia: I think, first and foremost, I hope we find a treatment for GA that is really effective, not just slowing the rate of growth, but stopping it. I hope that we find a therapy that's really going to change the game for vision, because I think that's what all of us want for our patients and our family members. I hope that's where we're going in the field of ophthalmology. And, you know, I think we can do it. I think we have a lot of great clinical trials, a lot of great research, and it is definitely possible.