Sight-saving eye drops could replace injections

Date: Mar-07-2014Drug treatments for diseases that cause blindness could be delivered by eye drops

instead of uncomfortable and costly eye injections, say UK researchers. The team reports how it

tested this innovation on animals in the nanotechnology journal Small.

The breakthrough could make a huge difference to the millions of people worldwide who, like

author Stephen King and actress Dame Judi Dench, suffer from blindness-causing diseases like

age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which affects 20% of people over the age of 75.

The number of people with AMD and similar disorders is rising steeply, as is the demand for

eye injections of the drugs that halt disease progress.

Injections to the eye are not only deeply unpleasant for patients, they are time-consuming,

expensive and difficult to administer. There is also a risk of infection and bleeding.

In 2010, over 1 million eye injections were performed in the US. In the UK, estimates show

about 30,500 were given in 2008, representing a 150-fold increase from 10 years before.

Not having eye injections would be great relief for patients

Lead author Francesca Cordeiro, a professor in the Institute of Ophthalmology at University

College London (UCL), says it is "impossible to exaggerate the relief patients would feel at not

having to experience injections into their eyes."

She explains that the current treatment of injecting the drugs into the eye is

very uncomfortable, and patients hate it. They often have to go to the hospital to receive the

injections every month for 2 years.

"The development of eye drops that can be safely and effectively used in patients would be a

magic bullet," she adds, saying it would be "a huge breakthrough in the treatment of AMD and

other debilitating eye disorders."

Researchers showed nanoparticles can deliver drugs through cornea to retina

The study is a breakthrough because it has been extremely challenging to find a way to

deliver drugs to the retina. Before this study, it was thought the molecules of drugs like

Avastin and Lucentis, used to treat AMD, were too big to be transported through to the retina in

eye drops.

But in their study, the team showed how they could get nanoparticles

loaded with Avastin to deliver significant concentrations to the back of the eyes of rats and

rabbits.

The study shows that Avastin can be transported across the cells of the cornea into the back

of the eye, where it stops blood vessels from leaking and forming new blood vessels, the basis

for wet AMD.

In theory, say the researchers, you could adapt the technology for use with other drugs like

Lucentis, commonly used in the UK to treat AMD. Lucentis is a smaller molecule than Avastin.

UCL's technology transfer company, UCL Business, has patented the eye drop technique. The team

is now looking for commercial partners to speed up the way ahead.

First author Dr. Ben Davis, also of UCL's Institute of Ophthalmology, says:

"All the components we used are safe and well-established in the field, meaning we could

potentially move quite quickly to get the technology into trials in patients - but the

timescales are dependent on funding."

Meanwhile, Medical News Today recently reported how gene therapy may improve an incurable

form of blindness. In that study, another team of UK scientists managed to restore some

sight in people with a degenerative eye disease called choroideremia, by replacing a defective

gene in their retinas with a working version of the same gene.

Written by Catharine Paddock PhD




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