I-Corps: Thermally-Responsive Hydrogels for Ocular Drug Delivery

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to ensure patients with glaucoma are compliant with their prescribed treatment. Compliance with a medication regimen is defined as the extent to which patients take medications as prescribed by their health care providers. Glaucoma patients require lifelong treatment and a strict commitment to administer eye drops daily, which is especially challenging for elderly patients. The successful application of eye drops requires coordination, manual dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and good vision, which result in fewer than 50 % of patients administering their eye drops as prescribed. Ophthalmic pharmaceuticals (eye drops) represent the most widely used treatment for glaucoma with more than 30 million prescriptions filled in the United States each year. This project has the potential to significantly reduce the number of patients who lose their vision due to glaucoma, dramatically improving the prognosis of those who are afflicted with this disease.This I-Corps project is based upon the development of a drug delivery platform to guarantee patients with chronic diseases are and continue to be complaint. Chronic diseases are especially sensitive to compliance issues due to the necessity of the patient to commit to a lifetime of treatment. This will be accomplished through the use of a proprietary drug eluting, thermally-responsive polymer that is liquid at room temperature and solidifies when it heats to body temperature. A solution of the polymer loaded with a therapeutic agent will be inserted into the tear duct where it will solidify, forming a solid, liquid-permeable plug. The plug conforms perfectly to the shape of the patient?s unique anatomy due to the liquid-to-solid phase transition that occurs after insertion. Once inserted, the therapeutic agent is continuously released from the plug, maintaining drug efficacy over an extended period, eliminating the need for the application of daily eye drops and ensuring patient compliance.