Primary Focus: Blindness and Regeneration

Helping free patients from the fear of vision loss and offer the hope of preserving or improving sight

A blue eyeball illustrates how Astellas is helping to free patients from the fear of vision loss and offer the hope of recovery and lost sight.
A blue eyeball illustrates how Astellas is helping to free patients from the fear of vision loss and offer the hope of recovery and lost sight.

Vision impairment and blindness affect more than 2.2 billion people globally* and can have a devastating long-term impact on quality of life. Beyond sight alone, vision loss can impact a person's ability to read, drive, work, maintain independence, connect with loved ones, and navigate everyday life. These experiences highlight the urgent need for innovation and reinforce our commitment to advancing science that addresses significant unmet patient needs.

Our approach

At Astellas, we strive to create a future where vision loss and degenerative diseases no longer define lives. We are working to move beyond slowing vision loss by developing next-generation therapies designed to protect, replace, or repair the function of cells critical for sight.
 

By integrating advances in cell therapy and gene therapy, we are building a differentiated approach to treating retinal diseases. Our key priorities include:

  • Targeting vision loss across disease stages, particularly where retinal cells are damaged or lost
  • Combining advanced platforms—including pluripotent stem cell (PSC)-derived therapies, Universal Cell technology, and AAV-based gene therapy—to develop differentiated treatment approaches
  • Exploring regenerative medicine beyond ophthalmology to address broader areas of unmet medical need

To deliver on this strategy, we bring together integrated, end-to-end capabilities spanning discovery, development, manufacturing and commercialization. Our capabilities include:

  • Creation and manufacturing of high-quality allogeneic PSC-derived differentiated cells
  • Advanced gene-editing capabilities supporting next-generation cell therapies, including the development of Universal Cell technology designed to reduce the risk of immune rejection
  • Design, manufacturing, and development of AAV-based gene therapies
  • Preclinical and clinical evaluation of innovative therapies in ophthalmology
  • Collaboration through Cellafa Bioscience to advance next-generation, AI and robotics-enabled cell therapy manufacturing platforms designed to improve scalability, consistency, and efficiency (Learn more about Cellafa in this article)

Together, this approach enables us to translate scientific innovation into potential treatments for high unmet patient needs.

Lead program and pipeline

Our lead program under Blindness and Regeneration is ASP7317 – a retinal pigment epithelium cell therapy for the treatment of geographic atrophy secondary to age-related macular degeneration. It is one of the first ophthalmic allogeneic pluripotent stem cell-based therapy to enter the clinic, conducted by Astellas’ Biopharma and Ophthalmology Development team.


ASP7317 is being developed at the Astellas Institute for Regenerative Medicine (AIRM), located in Westborough, Massachusetts, USA. AIRM is a 262,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility that allows us to combine both our research and manufacturing capabilities in the same complex, giving us the means to develop new treatments while scaling manufacturing for future commercialization needs.


Please view our pipeline for Blindness and Regeneration below. You can also access the full Astellas pipeline page here.

A table provides details on Astellas’ flagship program and pipeline.

Partnering with Astellas

Astellas continuously pursues innovative opportunities and next-generation modalities/technologies to deliver unique VALUE for patients. We prefer a regenerative approach to achieve function recovery of organs.


Assets and capabilities of interest for partnership:

  • Cell therapy, gene therapy, and new modalities/technologies in the field of ophthalmology and beyond (preclinical and clinical)
  • Drug candidates aiming at the regeneration of target organ in the field of ophthalmology and beyond (preclinical and clinical)
  • Cell therapy assets suitable for Universal Cell technology
  • Technology to enable less invasive and efficient delivery of drugs into the eye
  • Technology to improve Chemistry, Manufacturing and Control (CMC) of cell and gene therapy
  • Safer and efficient AAV serotypes for subretinal and intravitreous injection 

 

To learn more about how to collaborate with Astellas, please visit our Partnering page.

Talent

Astellas strives to match the best science and the best talent in order to deliver on our mission to turn innovative science into VALUE for patients. We encourage you to visit our Careers page to learn how you can join our work to turn innovative science into VALUE for patients.

*Data from the WHO Blindness and Visual Impairment fact sheet. Version 10 Feb 2026