Dual drug delivery from vitamin E loaded contact lenses for glaucoma therapy.

Glaucoma patients frequently instill eye drops multiple times each day, which is a cause for reduced compliance. Additionally, eye drops suffer from other limitations including low bioavailability, which can lead to side effects. We propose to develop drug-eluting contact lenses for managing glaucoma with increased bioavailability and improved compliance.

Glaucoma therapy by extended release of timolol from nanoparticle loaded silicone-hydrogel contact lenses.

Glaucoma is the second major cause of blindness in the world after cataract. Glaucoma management through eye drops that reduce the intraocular pressure (IOP) has major deficiencies including low patient compliance and low bioavailability. Extended wear contact lenses that deliver glaucoma drugs for extended periods could increase patient compliance, while also increasing the bioavailability.

Extended drug delivery by contact lenses for glaucoma therapy.

We combine laboratory-based timolol release studies and in vivo pharmacodynamics studies in beagle dogs to evaluate the efficacy of glaucoma therapy through extended wear contact lenses. Commercial contact lenses cannot provide extended delivery of ophthalmic drugs and so the studies here focused on increasing the release duration of timolol from ACUVUE TruEye contact lenses by incorporating vitamin E diffusion barriers. The efficacy of timolol delivered via extended wear contact lenses was then compared to eye drops in beagle dogs that suffer from spontaneous glaucoma.