India, US to fund collaborative grant for glaucoma research

The National Eye Institute and India’s Department of Biotechnology announced a new collaborative project to identify genetic risk factors and traits related to glaucoma. Grants from the two agencies stem from the U.S.-India Collaborative Vision Research Program, which is designed to advance knowledge in the biological mechanisms of ocular disease. The combined grants will be more than $1.3 million over 3 years, pending fund availability, according to an NEI press release.

Majority of adverse events in clinical trials remain unpublished

A lower number and smaller range of adverse events were reported in published studies compared with those unpublished, according to data published in PLoS Medicine.“We identified serious concerns about the substantial amount of unpublished adverse events data that may be difficult to access or ‘hidden’ from health care workers and members of the public,” Su Golder, PhD, in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York in the United Kingdom, and colleagues wrote. “Incomplete reporting of adverse events within published studies was a consistent finding across all the (Read more...)

FDA approves Tecnis toric calculator improvement

The FDA granted premarketing approval for a software update to Abbott’s Tecnis toric calculator, which will allow the option of adding the posterior corneal astigmatism factor into lens calculations, according to the FDA website.The addition of posterior corneal astigmatism compensation “eliminates the need for look-up tables and improves the predictability of residual astigmatism,” according to company correspondence.