Formosa Pharmaceuticals announces development collaboration agreement with Eyenovia

The foundation of the collaboration lies in the combination of Formosa's APNT formulation platform with Eyenovia's Optejet delivery system. (Adobe Stock image)

Formosa Pharmaceuticals announced today that the company has entered into a collaboration agreement with Eyenovia Inc. for the development of novel ophthalmic therapeutics.

According to a news release, the foundation of the collaboration lies in the combination of Formosa's APNT formulation platform with Eyenovia's Optejet delivery system. 

Eyenovia's delivery platform for ocular therapeutics utilizes Microdose Array Print (MAP) technology to deliver 6 to 8 microliters of drug product, consistent with the capacity of the tear film of the eye. At less than 20% volume of that delivered by conventional eyedroppers, Optejet reduces the risk of overdosing and unnecessary drug exposure. Furthermore, the Optejet action is both rapid and gentle, ensuring efficient and comfortable delivery to the ocular surface.

Formosa's proprietary APNT formulation platform improves dissolution and bioavailability of active pharmaceutical ingredients via a mild and efficient particle size reduction technique optimized for topical, oral, or inhaler administration routes. Resulting formulations have high uniformity, purity, and stability, thereby allowing the utilization of poorly soluble or extremely potent drug agents which otherwise may face insurmountable challenges in delivery and penetration to target tissues.

In the news release Michael Rowe, CEO of Eyenovia, noted that the company has pulled together a growing body of evidence demonstrating the many benefits of Optejet, including improved patient compliance and the achievement of therapeutic doses of medication with far less stress on the ocular surface than other forms of administration, such as standard eye drops.

“Through this development collaboration, we not only gain access to Formosa's proven ophthalmic formulation expertise for further development using Optejet, but also its APNT formulation platform which opens up several new and large market indications for potential expansion of our own development pipeline,” Rowe said.

Moreover, Erick Co, CEO of Formosa Pharmaceuticals, added in the news release that the company was pleased to have a chance to “explore new frontiers in ophthalmology in this collaboration with Eyenovia."

“Each company's proprietary technology enables the efficient use of existing and untapped agents in new indications,’ he said in the release. “Together, APNT and Optejet have obvious synergies and thus a high potential to unlock a wide new range of ophthalmic therapeutics and applications. We are keen to launch this collaboration as quickly as possible."