Retinitis pigmentosa is currently untreatable and leads to a slow and irreversible loss of vision.
The trial is being run by Nightstarx Ltd (Nightstar), a biopharmaceutical spinout company of Oxford developing gene therapies for inherited retinal diseases, and researchers from the University of Oxford led by NDCN's Professor Robert MacLaren.
On 16 March 2017, a 29 year old British man became the first patient with X-linked retinitis pigmentosa to undergo gene therapy. The operation took place at the Oxford Eye Hospital, part of the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.