Scientists have developed a new contact lens which releases drugs into the eye and could help treat glaucoma, the world's leading cause of irreversible blindness. Researchers at Harvard Medical School department of ophthalmology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are one step closer to an eye dropfree reality with the development of a drug-eluting contact lens designed for prolonged delivery of latanoprost , a common drug used for glaucoma treatment.
"In general, eye drops are an inefficient method of drug delivery that has notoriously poor patient adherence . This contact lens design can potentially be used as a treatment for glaucoma and as a platform for other ocular drug delivery applications ," said Joseph Ciolino, lead author of the paper. The lens were designed with materials approved by FDA for use on eye, experts said.
