Developing a New Glaucoma Treatment That Avoids Daily Drops

Our lab has developed an injectable medication for the treatment of glaucoma; we seek to further evaluate this treatment in a clinically relevant model.

Glaucoma is the leading case of irreversible blindness worldwide. Current treatments that require daily instillation of eyedrops to lower pressure cause side effects and fail to adequately treat many patients. My lab developed a pressure-lowering drug that acts for 6 months with a single injection. We now seek to test this drug in a large animal in hopes of bringing a new therapy to patients.

Delivering an intraocular pressure lowering protein with a vector system for sustained pressure reduction represents a first in class therapeutic approach. This has potential to improve patient compliance and reduce ocular surface side effects by avoiding the daily instillation of an eyedrop.

Glaucoma remains the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Providing a long-lasting injectable medication could help those where daily eyedrops are not feasible, cumbersome, or limited by side-effects has potential to help the 80 million people worldwide with glaucoma.