Cenegermin: A Review in Neurotrophic Keratitis

Cenegermin (Oxervate™), an ophthalmic solution containing 20 µg/mL of recombinant human nerve growth factor (rhNGF), is the first drug to be approved for the treatment of neurotrophic keratitis (NK; also referred to as neurotrophic keratopathy). In the registration trials, the majority of adults with moderate or severe NK experienced complete corneal healing after up to 8 weeks of topical cenegermin therapy. The rate of complete corneal healing was generally higher, and that of disease progression was lower, with cenegermin than with vehicle. Although the drug provided no statistically significant benefit over vehicle in terms of corneal sensitivity or visual acuity after 8 weeks of treatment, few patients with corneal healing experienced disease recurrence over 48 weeks of follow-up. Longer-term data are needed to definitively determine the efficacy of cenegermin with respect to these outcomes; further investigation into cenegermin re-treatment following disease recurrence would also be beneficial. Cenegermin had no detrimental impact on health-related quality of life (in contrast to some surgical treatments) and was generally well tolerated. Cenegermin is thus a welcomed non-surgical treatment option approved for this rare and challenging degenerative disease.