Development of Self-Assembled Vd/Hpmc Nanoparticles for Dry Eye Treatment

Dry eye diseases are commonly treated with eye drop formulations, however, eye drop formulations require frequent dosing with high drug concentrations due to poor ocular surface retention, which leads to poor patient compliance and high risks of side effects. The goal of this project is to develop a method for fabrication of therapeutic devices that can prolong the ocular retention of therapeutic agents, consequently offering an effective treatment of the dry eye diseases with reduced dosage and higher compliance for patients. Using anti-solvent precipitation method, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) molecules can be crystallized into nanoparticles, thus enhancing their uptake and thereby extending their release from a commercial contact lens as a delivery platform for the nanoscale ocular lubricant. Moreover, solubility of and bioavailability of vitamin D (VD), which is a therapeutic agent with ability to promote tear secretion, reduce tear instability, and mitigate inflammation, on ocular surface is improved by HPMC through a formation of hybrid VD/HPMC nanoparticles. We expect that our proposed method to synthesize VD/HPMC nanoparticles can be leveraged to mass production at low cost. The suspensions of these nanoparticles are not only can be employed as packaging solutions for commercial contact lens but also provide alleviation and compliance for patients afflicted with dry eyes.

Project ID:PB10811-0265
External Project ID:MOST108-2622-E182-004-CC2