Eyenovations, a startup company in Cambridge, has developed a contact lens that can deliver drugs to the eye for several weeks or more. The current method of using eyedrops to deliver drugs to the eye may be simple but if they need to be taken several times a day it can become tedious for the patient. Patients with glaucoma for example will benefit from these contact lenses to deliver the medicine. Daniel Kohane, director of the Laboratory for Biomaterials and Drug Delivery at Children’s Hospital in Boston, developed the drug-dispensing contact lenses for patients who received a prosthetic cornea and needed antibiotics.
"A drug-eluting contact lens has tremendous potential," says James Chodosh, an ophthalmologist at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, who was not involved in the work. The technology would be particularly useful for elderly or handicapped patients who have difficulty adhering to a frequent-dosing regimen, he says.
Several other research groups have struggled to construct a contact lens that is able to deliver the medication over long periods of time. The Eyenovations team is now in the process of patenting their technology that allows them to create a contact lens that will deliver high doses of medication for up to 100 days. For commercial reasons Eyenovations plan is to develop a 30 day version of the medication delivering contact lens to deliver drugs for up to 30 days (30 days is the FDA’s limit for single-use contact lenses).
On January 10, 2009 the team published a paper in Contact Lenses – Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science demonstrating that for over a month the contact lenses could release an antibiotic.
Eyenovations first focus will be developing a lens that delivers medication for Glaucoma. Affecting more than 2.5 million Americans Glaucoma is expected to grow as the population ages. Eyedrops are prescribed to Glaucoma patients but because of the large number of drops required, up to 8 a day, many patients fail to follow the medication schedules. In addition to helping patients who suffer from Glaucoma Eyenovations believes its technology can help other widespread conditions that require large number of eyedrops including dry eyes.
The contact lenses available for comparison through Lens-Saver.com unfortunately are not the drug dispensing type. Check out all the great deals we have on Contact Lenses and save your money! Also if you are looking for Contact Lens Coupons – Rebates – Discounts visit our Contact Lens Coupons page.
Source: MIT Technology Review
i might not have said this was remarkable quite a few years in the past yet its crazy precisely how age changes the manner you perceive completely different ideas, many thanks with regard to the write-up it is actually relaxing to browse through some thing sensible occasionally in lieu of the normal trash mascarading as a blog on the net