UCLA researchers in Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering developed a visible light crosslinkable hydrogel-based drug delivery platform that can achieve sustainable release of anti-inflammatory drug molecules to address unmet need of drug bioavailability in ocular injury treatment.
BACKGROUND: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that approximately 12 million people over the age of 40 in the United States have vision impairment. Ocular inflammations are commonly associated with eye diseases, injuries, and post-operative complications. Bacterial infection is a major cause of eye-related inflammations. Ophthalmic antibiotics are the most used topical treatment, but suffer from poor bioavailability, as less than 5% of a dose can be delivered to the posterior segment of eyes. Various ocular drug delivery methods, like intravitreal and oral injection, also have severe limitations and fail to achieve sustained release.
Effective and sustained ocular delivery of therapeutics remains a challenge due to ocular physiology and structural barriers. So far, nanoparticles (NPs) have shown promising drug delivery outcomes. The NPs-based drug delivery systems can be composed of self-assembled proteins or peptides, synthetic block co-polymers, or lipids. However, current platforms designed specifically for ocular drug delivery show limited therapeutic efficacy due to several limitations in the delivery systems which lack required targeting effect, loading efficacy and doses, biocompatibility, etc.
INNOVATION: UCLA researchers led by Dr. Nasim Annabi developed effective drug delivery platform for controlled and sustained release of both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs. They achieved this goal by engineering a photocrosslinkable adhesive patch (termed GelPatch) which was incorporated with nanoparticles loaded with drug (such as anti-inflammatory drug molecules or antibiotics). This GelPatch allows drugs to penetrate the structural barriers of ocular tissues and provides a sustained release of drugs directly to the injured sites. This technology is biocompatible and affinitive to the stromal defected cornea. The GelPatch has strong tissue adhesion to ocular surfaces, enabling localized delivery of drug at the therapeutics doses, and has mechanical properties similar to the eye, avoiding mechanical mismatch and patient discomfort.
This technology solves the barrier of poor solubility of hydrophobic corticosteroids that was hindering its application. Such a drug delivery platform can be used for treatment of different ocular anterior segment diseases and injuries.
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS:
- Slow and sustained release of therapeutics for treatment of ocular complications
- GelPatch has great potential to circumvent the drawbacks of contact lenses, microneedle patches, and other currently available adhesives in the market.
ADVANTAGES:
- Noninvasive, highly adhesive, and biocompatible
- Drug protection and sustained release
- Local drug delivery at required dose.
- Lower dosage requirements to ensure better patient compliance
DEVELOPMENT-TO-DATE: The idea of this invention started in August 2020. By the end of May 2021, the inventors demonstrated the success of this invention in in vitro assays and in vivo rat subcutaneous implementation assays, showing high cell viability, cell adherence and growth, in vivo biocompatibility and appropriate stability.
Related Papers (from the inventors only): Gholizadeh, S., Wang, Z., Chen, X., Dana, R., Annabi, N. Advanced nanodelivery platforms for topical ophthalmic drug delivery. Drug Discovery Today. 2021, 26(6), 1437-1449.