Glaucoma 360: Innovations in glaucoma drugs and drug delivery

Joseph Panarelli, MD, sat down with David Hutton of Ophthalmology Times to discuss the panel he moderated at the Glaucoma 360 meeting held in San Francisco, about innovations in glaucoma drugs, and drug delivery.

Video Transcript

Editor's note - This transcript has been edited for clarity.

David Hutton:

I'm David Hutton of Ophthalmology Times. The annual Glaucoma 360 meeting is held this year in San Francisco at the Westin St. Francis on Union Square. Dr. Joseph Panarelli moderated a panel titled, "Medications in motion: Innovations in glaucoma drugs, and drug delivery." Thanks so much for joining me. Tell us a little bit about this panel.

Joseph Panarelli, MD:

Well, it's a pleasure to be here, David. And yeah, this is a really, you know, exciting topic in the field of Ophthalmology at this point in time. I was fortunate to moderate the session with Courtney Bovee, and one of our panelists was Wiley Chambers, who has done so much at the FDA over the years with regards to drug development. And, you know, we had some great representatives from PolyActiva, Ripple Therapeutics, Skye Bioscience, Thea, and Visus Therapeutics. And, you know, really what we talked about was just where do we see the landscape in the next 5 years, or even 10 years. I think, for many of us, we're not certain that topical administration of drops, you know, is going to be what we're using, you know, 10 years from now. So intracameral drug delivery, different formulations of medicines, preservative free medicines, there's so many new technologies that are becoming available. And, you know, I think the bottom line is, we're all excited to have more weapons at our disposal to treat this disease. And we want to provide, you know, the best possible ways to treat each of our patients. So we all keep our fingers crossed and hope to have good results down the road.

David Hutton:

And ultimately, what can this all mean, for ophthalmologists and the patients they treat?

Joseph Panarelli, MD:

You know, I think hopefully, what it means is that we get more consistent care for our patients with potentially less frequent visits to the office, because that is really one of the tricky parts. You know, we're all seeing a lot of patients with long wait times, you know, if we can find ways to deliver medications consistently, such that we don't have to worry as much about compliance and other issues for our patients, you know, our patients are happier. We're happier. Our offices, you know, move more smoothly, and we could take more time with the patients that potentially need it. Those that are you know, losing vision rapidly and may need surgical intervention. So, you know, I think the goal here is to improve of course, the quality of care with better formulations of medication.