Development of a non-invasive ocular drug delivery device

Within ophthalmology, eye drops are prescribed for treatment and prevention of ocular diseases. Unfortunately, compliance is often low resulting in compromise of the effectiveness of the prescribed therapy. Therefore, we developed a non-invasive drug delivery device, the ocular coil. A small rod-like structure, filled with drugs in the inner-lumen, to be placed behind the lower eyelid. This was tested preclinical, followed by the performance of a fist-in-man trial, testing comfort and safety in human volunteers.
In parallel the focus was on the detection of drugs in the eye, without drawing a sample (also non-invasive), using the reflection of light called Raman spectroscopy.
The third part of the research focused on objective scoring of ocular redness, a sign of ocular irritation caused by e.g. a drug or drug delivery device. This was done by using deep-learning artificial intelligence to train a computer to first select the white of the eye and secondly, score the redness of the white of the eye using an algorithm.