Drug-Eluting Contact Lenses
Delivering medication directly to the eye for significantly improved treatment of chronic ocular diseases.
High precision and patterned deposition method.
Our technology uses a unique liquid deposition method with high precision control to deposit a controlled mass of materials onto the surfaces of medical devices with pre-designed patterns at pre-determined locations. Depending on the processing parameters and the material properties, the deposited coat layer can be either a smooth and continuous layer of materials with no pinhole or a layer formed by semi-fused nanoparticles.
Examples of such include a ring-shaped drug layer at the edge of contact lenses to allow targeted drug delivery to the eye at a controlled rate and drug coat on the highly curved surfaces of carotid artery stents.
EXAMPLE APPLICATION
The use of eye drops has been reported to show extremely poor patient compliance and high drug wastage for treating chronic ocular diseases. Using glaucoma as an example, only less than 20% of patients use the eye drops daily as instructed.
Even being used correctly, only 1-5% of the dose will get to the eye and be effective, the rest is washed away by tear fluid. DECLs can significantly reduce drug wash-off and the dosing frequency, therefore, maximise the therapeutic effect. The soaking method is commonly used to prepare DECLs, which is a wasteful method and “burst” release of medication is unavoidable.
Our coating technology can precisely deposit the required amount of drug at the peripheral region of the contact lens without blocking the vision zone and have the potential to control the drug release. This improves the therapeutic outcome and minimises the waste of expensive active pharmaceutical ingredients.
HOW IT WILL BENEFIT...
PATIENTS
- Mess free application
- Tailored dosage to your needs
- Better therapeutic outcome
- Less chance of side effects
CONTACT LENS MANUFACTURERS
- Reduces therapeutic contact lens R&D process
- Early adoption & market leader potential
- New innovative product provider
MEDICAL DEVICE MANUFACTURERS
- Precise method to deposit thin coatings
- Almost zero waste
- Deposit volume down to femtoliter if needed
- Modular setup easily integrated
Who are we?
We are the Qi group from the University of East Anglia who have developed a novel liquid formulation deposition technology that enables precise printing of material down to sub-picoliter.
As a platform technology, it can print a wide range of materials such as drug molecules, polymer, dye, conductive materials etc - which could have a wide range of applications in medical devices, diagnostics, and disease monitoring.
We have used our technology to print drug molecules onto commercially available soft contact lenses to produce Drug-Eluting Contact Lens (DECLs).
WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?
We would love to hear your thoughts on our innovative new technology.
Whether you are in the medical device space, an Optician or an end user, we would welcome your feedback either through filling in our brief survey, or getting in touch with us directly.
PicoCoat 2022