Dry Eye Drugs - what's the hold up?

[littlemermaid]

http://www.reviewofoptometry.com/content/c/54628/ 'Whet Your Appetite for New Dry Eye Drugs - Doctors have few choices to treat this growing diagnosis, but that may change soon. Here’s 10 medications in the pipeline: cyclosporine, Lifitegrast, EBI-005, Anakinra, MIM-D3, Rebagen, Tofacitinib, EGP-437, RGN-259, KPI-121. By I. Ben Gaddie, OD. Review of Optometry, 5/15/2015.

[patrick]

Thank you for sharing littlemermaid!
This is very interesting..

[RFREITAS]

Thank you LM

But they miss the time range ) it should all be next year!!!

[grant555]

Not to be a downer... but the list is somewhat misleading. The two previously most promising on this list - Number 2 and Number 3 have both massively disappointed. While Lifitegrast will likely hit the market despite not doing well in Phase 3 trials (solely bc of the darth of dry eye drugs), EBI-005 did so poorly in Phase 2 trials that it will no longer be brought to market as a dry eye drug (they are still working towards allergies however). I think the author did not do proper research before writing this article. I also think #1 Cyclosporine is not very exciting given that Restasis is already on the market.

Also, several of the drugs on the list are steroids, which cannot be used long term.

[littlemermaid]

Wow, grant, that is a downer! As my daughter is a Star Wars fan, loved your description

(solely bc of the darth of dry eye drugs)

[Amanda]

Not to be a downer... but the list is somewhat misleading. The two previously most promising on this list - Number 2 and Number 3 have both massively disappointed. While Lifitegrast will likely hit the market despite not doing well in Phase 3 trials (solely bc of the darth of dry eye drugs), EBI-005 did so poorly in Phase 2 trials that it will no longer be brought to market as a dry eye drug (they are still working towards allergies however). I think the author did not do proper research before writing this article. I also think #1 Cyclosporine is not very exciting given that Restasis is already on the market.

Also, several of the drugs on the list are steroids, which cannot be used long term.

Grant, after doing much research on this, I come to the same conclusion as you. It is unfortunate and somewhat depressing, to see that there is not much out there in the form of promising drugs in the near future. I do hope that something changes on that front. Have any of you read about this: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1...defeat-dry-eye.

If so, what are your thoughts?

[grant555]

Hi Amanda - I don't really know much about that, but I have heard of devices to stimulate the lacrimal gland. For me, the amount of tears on my eye is not the issues so I haven't really paid attention to these types of devices. My problem is inflammation/MGD.

Hopefully it works well!

[Amanda]

Hi Amanda - I don't really know much about that, but I have heard of devices to stimulate the lacrimal gland. For me, the amount of tears on my eye is not the issues so I haven't really paid attention to these types of devices. My problem is inflammation/MGD.

Hopefully it works well!

Ah, good point...my issue is the amount of tears I think we should have a MGD or ADT sign in front of our name so we know which is the most problematic issue for us when we are talking with one another

[bostoneye]

Hi Amanda - I don't really know much about that, but I have heard of devices to stimulate the lacrimal gland. For me, the amount of tears on my eye is not the issues so I haven't really paid attention to these types of devices. My problem is inflammation/MGD.

Hopefully it works well!

Grant - What if anything has worked for you? I also have MGD and inflammation. Nothing has really helped consistently except probing, which I had about five months ago, along with testosterone drops. Eyes were much better until a week ago, when I took a turn for the worse and now am fairly miserable. I have some blephamide ointment and have been using it 2x a day knowing it's only short term, and it helps some. I can't see my doc for more than a month, but I'm worried that the glands are plugged again. A huge disappointment and wondering if I am a the end of the road. Thanks.