PROMINENT-Eye Ancillary Study (Protocol AD)

Overview

Despite improved glycemic and systemic control for many patients with diabetes, over the past several decades, diabetic retinopathy (DR) develops and progresses in a large proportion of patients, and visual loss from diabetic eye complications continues to be a leading cause of blindness in the US and other developed countries worldwide. Thus, even a modest ability to prevent DR onset or to slow DR worsening might substantially reduce the number of patients at risk for diabetes-related vision loss worldwide. Widespread use of an oral agent effective at reducing worsening of DR might also decrease the numbers of patients who undergo treatment for DR and diabetic macular edema (DME) and who are consequently at risk for side effects that adversely affect visual function. Two major studies of fenofibrate, the Fenofibrate Intervention and Event Lowering in Diabetes (FIELD) and The Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD)-eye study, have demonstrated clinically important reduction in progression of retinopathy in patients with diabetes assigned to fibrate compared with placebo. However, despite the positive clinical trial results, fenofibrate has not gained wide acceptance as a preventive agent by either ophthalmologists or primary diabetes care providers. Thus, it is important to provide further evidence demonstrating whether or not selectively increasing peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARα) activity reduces progression of retinopathy in patients with diabetes and non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy at baseline. Pemafibrate is a more potent and selective PPARα modulator than fenofibrate. Its efficacy is currently being evaluated in the Pemafibrate to Reduce Cardiovascular OutcoMes by Reducing Triglycerides IN patiENts With diabeTes (PROMINENT) study for prevention of cardiovascular events in patients with type 2 diabetes. Given the large study cohort with a substantial proportion likely to have DR and the multi-year duration of the PROMINENT trial, this study represents a unique opportunity to assess effects of chronic PPARα activation through pemafibrate therapy on DR outcomes. Primary Study Objective: To assess whether treatment with pemafibrate (0.2 mg orally BID) compared with placebo reduces the hazard rate of diabetic retinopathy worsening in adults with type 2 diabetes and diabetic retinopathy without neovascularization in at least one eye who are participating in the parent PROMINENT trial.