Author: Healio ophthalmology

Health care largely ‘wins’ in latest budget deal, analysts, medical societies say

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Health care policy analysts and medical societies are applauding the budget agreement signed last week by President Donald Trump, citing financial support in several critical areas.
“The recent compromise budget bill is largely a win for physicians and health care more broadly,” Philip A. Verhoef, PhD, MD, FAAP, FACP, assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics, University of Chicago, told Healio Family Medicine.
The plan provides the Childrens’ Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, with a total of 10 years of funding, which is 5 years longer than a previous agreement; NIH

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FDA approves Dexycu to treat cataract surgery inflammation

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Icon Bioscience reported the FDA approved its new drug application for Dexycu, a dropless therapeutic designed to treat inflammation associated with cataract surgery.
The current standard treatment after cataract surgery is self-administered medicated eye drops, several times a day over several weeks. The Dexycu (dexamethasone intraocular suspension) treatment is applied as a single injection at the end of surgery, David S. Tierney, MD, president and CEO of Icon Bioscience, said in a press release.
The treatment uses Icon’s Verisome drug delivery technology to dispense a biodegradable

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IBD patients with uveitis show distinct microbiome signature, suggesting gut-eye axis

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Faazil Kassam
Patients with inflammatory bowel disease who develop uveitis, a common extra-intestinal manifestation of IBD affecting the eye, showed a unique gut microbiome signature compared with IBD patients without uveitis, according to new research presented at the American Uveitis Society Meeting.
Investigators said they believe this is the first study to link the gut microbiome with a disease of the eye, which suggests that the “gut-eye axis” may be an important new area for research.
“Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are at risk of developing uveitis, an

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Beginner surgeons can experience good results with DMEK

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BELGRADE, Serbia — A multicenter study on Descemet’s membrane endothelial keratoplasty showed that results improve with experience, but beginner surgeons can also achieve good clinical outcomes.
“Up to now, we only had single-center studies on DMEK. We set up the first multicenter study, including the data from 55 surgeons in 33 countries and comparing the results of beginners and experienced DMEK surgeons,” Jorge Peraza-Nieves, MD, said at the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons winter meeting.
Seventy percent of the surgeons included were Europeans,

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Patients report relief of ocular symptoms after Xen implantation

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The Xen45 gel stent can provide long-term IOP reduction in patients with refractory glaucoma while offering a more favorable safety profile as well as relief from multiple ocular symptoms, according to a poster presented at the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting in New Orleans.
“The improvement in symptoms is likely related to reduced medication use,” Joseph F. Panarelli, MD, lead author of the poster, said in a follow-up interview with Ocular Surgery News.
The Xen45 gel stent (Allergan) is a MIGS device that is implanted ab interno to create a (Read more...)

Hypersonic vitreous liquefaction drives breakthrough innovation in vitrectomy

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Hypersonic vitrectomy, which uses hypersonic reciprocating hydraulics to liquefy the vitreous, may be the next major breakthrough in vitreoretinal surgery. While pneumatic cutters use a double-port probe, wherein the vitreous is first aspirated and then sheared, the new system liquefies and aspirates the vitreous with a 23-gauge single-port probe.
“Rather than being cut, the vitreous is reduced to the viscosity of water and aspirated, using much lower energy with greater efficiency, causing less traction and turbulence,” Amar Agarwal, MS, FRCS, FRCOphth, director of Dr. Agarwal’s

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Glaukos seeks to ‘transform glaucoma therapy’

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Four new iStent devices are in the product pipeline, along with an intraocular drug delivery device, according to Thomas W. Burns, president and CEO of Glaukos, at the 36th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.
Glaukos is using an algorithm to transform glaucoma therapy with products planned to treat the full range of glaucoma, Burns said in the conference webcast.
“Glaukos now has five distinct products that we are targeting to become commercially available within the next 5 years. For a newly christened IPO company, that is an impressive font for (Read more...)

Follow the money, part 2

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Last month I outlined the basic supply chain that once determined how much money your patient spent to acquire medication. A pharmaceutical company produced a drug and sold it to a wholesaler, which then sold it to a retailer, such as a pharmacy or hospital. Another hand slipped into the process in the guise of an insurance company that had contracted to pay some or all of the patient’s cost. Your patient paid a negotiated amount at the point of sale. If the medicine was a generic, the cost to (Read more...)

Enrollment complete in Aerpio’s phase 2b diabetic retinopathy treatment trial

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Aerpio Pharmaceuticals has completed patient enrollment in its phase 2b TIME-2b study of AKB-9778, its treatment candidate for moderate to severe nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy, according to a press release.
The double-masked, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial enrolled 167 patients who will receive 48 weeks of treatment with AKB-9778 15 mg subcutaneously once a day, AKB-9778
15 mg subcutaneously twice a day or placebo subcutaneously twice a day. The trial’s primary endpoint is the percentage of patients who improve by two or more steps in diabetic retinopathy severity score in

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