Today in TechNew contact lenses dispense medication, dispense with eye drops
Mark Byrne, an associate professor at Auburn University's Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, thinks he can see the future of eye medicine — and it doesn't have any room for eye drops. Byrne, along with a team of chemical and biological engineers from the school, has taken the wraps off a new type of contact lens that delivers medication directly to the eye over extended periods.
More than simply standard lenses dipped in medication, the ones Byrne proposes are engineered on the molecular level to deliver medicine at a steady rate over periods ranging anywhere from 24 hours to 30 days without needing to be removed, even while sleeping. According to Byrne, this is a huge advance over existing eye drop-based therapies since with them, medication either runs out of the eye or is only effective for 15 to 30 minutes at a time.
Byrne and his team of researchers may have a (much) better way to deliver antihistamines, antibiotics, and other helpful medications in view, but don't look for these lenses to be offered by your ophthalmologist soon. They'll still need to be seen by the FDA, and we can't imagine that the world's eye drop makers will look too kindly on such visionary competition.
This article was written by Randy Nelson and originally appeared on Tecca
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