New frontiers of technology for treatment of eye diseases

Contemporary health care is changing radically as emerging technologies use innovation and creativity to determine newer ways of managing complex problems. The pharmaceutical industry has been on the forefront of invention, creating novel drugs and drug delivery systems to treat myriad eye diseases. The current drug delivery approaches place a significant burden on patients and their families, with frequent dosing regimens and long-drawn treatment protocols. Also, the local and systemic side effects of some of these medications may lead to noncompliance with the treatment and ultimately to treatment failure.As the number of patients requiring long-term medications is on the rise, there is an urgent need to develop novel ocular delivery systems. An ideal drug delivery system would achieve bioavailability of the drug at the target tissue for a prolonged time interval with minimal systemic side effects. It would have mechanisms incorporated to monitor the eye disease and be programmed to release the drug on demand. It would also be remotely controlled to administer precisely metered nano-doses. Such a device would be easy to insert and refillable and have a low cost. This would be groundbreaking.