Advances in the topical ocular drug delivery

Abstract

Technology for delivering active moieties to the eye has shown many advancements in recent years, from primitive eye drops to iontophoretic drug delivery, in situ gelling systems, dendrimers, penetration enhancers, lipid emulsions, ocular inserts, mucoadhesive polymers, thiolated polymers, collagen shield, soft drugs and site-specific drug delivery systems. The drawbacks of conventional therapy are largely circumvented by these advanced ocular drug delivery systems. However, so far, very few drug delivery systems have made their way to the market. Nevertheless, there has been extensive progress in the development of ocular delivery systems.

Keywords::

• collagen shields
• dendrimers
• in situ gelling systems
• lipid emulsions
• lyophilisates
• microemulsions
• mucoadhesive polymers
• ocular drug delivery
• ocular inserts
• ocular iontophoresis
• prodrugs
• soft drugs
• thiolated polymers
• vesicular systems