gms | German Medical Science

In industrial countries glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness. Independent from the type of glaucoma early and continuous drug treatment is the primary choice of therapy. The majority of established chronic treatments as there are alpha adrenergic agonists, beta blockers, carbonic anhydrase inhibitors, miotics and prostaglandin analogs are administered locally with the intention of preferably continuous local action at the eye. Due to the physiology of the eye, drugs administered as eye drops are rapidly cleared from the site of action.

This is a typical situation where galenical approaches for optimizing therapies are developed and a broad spectrum of simple but also highly sophisticated devices have been tested so far.

The presentation gives an overview about galenical approaches, from simple devices like viscous eye drops and gels to contact lenses, inserts and implants, punctual plugs and also highly sophisticated technical solutions like micro-electromechanical intraocular drug delivery devices. For selected examples clinical development strategies are presented