Drug delivery to the posterior segment of the eye: The challenges and the solutions

---

Irach B Taraporewala

Sitara Pharmaceutical Group, USA

: J Pharm Drug Deliv Res

Abstract

---

With the aging population and the global increase in the incidence of diabetes, chronic diseases of the posterior segment of the eye are becoming increasingly prevalent. Treatment of disorders such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy, macular edema and uveitis require the effective and reliable delivery of a drug molecule into the choroid and retinal tissue layers in the eye’s posterior segment. Because of the numerous natural barriers to a drug molecule’s entry into the interior of the eye, this is often a challeging proposoition. A number of drug substance classes with vastly different physicochemical properties are being developed to treat such disorders, including small molecule, polypeptides, monoclonal antibodies and oligonucleotide aptamers. With these advances comes the need to develop new drug delivery technologies to achieve sustained therapeutic levels of drug in the target ocular tissues. The presentation will review the current state of drug delivery and recent advances in this area. Both approaches of novel drug formulation methodologies and medical device development are being utilized for the purpose. Use of formulation additives, nanoparticle, microparticle and liposomal approaches are being increasingly developed, as are new types of implantable and injected medical devices that provide for successful elution of therapeutic levels of drug substances into the choroid and retina. These advances are likely to impact the future of drug development for the effective management of ocular diseases of the posterior segment.

Biography

---

Irach B Taraporewala has over 30 years’ experience in drug discovery/drug development R&D. He currently is a President of the Sitara Pharmaceutical Consulting Group. He has previously served as Founder, CEO, President and Chief Technology Officer and on the Board of Directors of OHR Pharmaceutical, Inc. an ophthalmology drug development company and as a Drug Development Consultant at PAREXEL Consulting. He has published papers in drug development and delivery in reputed journals and has lectured extensively. He has received his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science and has been Principal Investigator on several NIH/DoD biomedical research grants.

Email: itaraporewala@outlook.com