Restasis X (ciclosporin ophthalmic new formulation) / AbbVie - LARVOL DELTA

Tear Film Thickness (TFT) is the Most Sensitive Measure to Capture Differences in the Critical Quality Attributes of a Formulation Using Anterior Segment Optical Coherence Tomography (AS-OCT) (ARVO 2023) - "All 3 lots of Restasis exhibited comparable TFT levels at all time points. Layman Abstract (optional): Provide a 50-200 word description of your work that non-scientists can understand. Describe the big picture and the implications of your findings, not the study itself and the associated details."

Ophthalmology

Loteprednol 0.25% (Eysuvis) for dry eye disease. (PubMed, Med Lett Drugs Ther) - No abstract available

Journal • Dry Eye Disease • Ophthalmology

[VIRTUAL] When Artifical Tears Won't Do the Trick (AAOPT 2020) - "Foreign body sensation and pain OD>OS, OD feels like there’s pressure behind eye, hard time focusingOcular Hx: Dry eye OU, presbyopia, hyperopia OU, narrow angles OUMedical Hx: persistent depressive disorderMedications: artificial tears, Eszopiclone, Gabapentin, pilocarpine tablet, sumatriptan, discontinued use of Restasis, Xiidra, FluorometholoneOther salient info: History dry eye treatment. This patient is diagnosed with depression, another reason why neuropathic pain was considered. All in all, this case was unique because it displayed how a patient was systematically treated for dry eye and even then, symptoms still persisted."

Dry Eye Disease • Ophthalmology • Optic Neuritis

Help your patients embrace holiday glamour without worsening dry eye (Ophthalmology Times) - "In addition to educating patients about beauty products, I think the best defense is to make sure that they start the season with the healthiest eyes possible. I use IPL therapy (Optima IPL, Lumenis), which allows us to solve several issues simultaneously. IPL rejuvenates skin in the eye area, reduces ocular surface inflammation, closes off lid margin telengiectasias, improves meibomian gland function, and can even increase the number of working glands over time."

Online posting

Dry eye disease treatment options (Ophthalmology Management) - "'Certainly we see those patients who simply have an aqueous deficient component or they have a component of meibomian gland disease (MGD) and evaporative loss, but it’s much more common to see mixed disease. We need to tailor our treatment towards all of the components that are present, which is what the CEDARS algorithm is based on,' says Jodi Luchs, MD, FACS....Elizabeth Yeu, MD...looks at DED from three different perspectives, both diagnostically and for treatment: the systemic component (if any), normalizing the tear film and normalizing the ocular surface architecture. 'The answers to those three components direct treatment,' she says....Using milder steroids for longer periods of time (4-6 weeks) can give patients that 'initial bump to decrease inflammation,' says Parag Majmudar, MD...Still, clinicians should remain vigilant about monitoring IOP and cataract formation."

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The new immunomodulator math (Healio) - "Anyway, anyone who thought the addition of Cequa (cyclosporine ophthalmic solution 0.09%, Sun Pharmaceutical) to the dynamic duo Restasis (cyclosporine ophthalmic emulsion 0.05%, Allergan) and Xiidra (lifitegrast ophthalmic solution 5%, Novartis) was going to make our numbers game easier just has not been paying attention over the years. We have now been actively prescribing all three medications at SkyVision for our dry eye patients for 6 months. This is a good time to review the ways that my staff, associates and I have been getting these medications into our patients’ eyes in a way that does not break the bank."

Online posting

Holmes and Watson: Dry eye, big data and AI (Healio) - "A retrospective review utilizing a proprietary IBM database of commercial insurance claims (including Medicare patients who have secondary insurance) was performed on patients with a DED diagnosis who filled a Restasis or Xiidra prescription between July 2016 and February 2018. There was a total of 154,000 patients included, of which roughly 10,000 (6,537 for Restasis and 3,235 for Xiidra) were pure first prescriptions (eg, no prior Restasis or steroid prescriptions in the Xiidra group). This group of treatment-naive DED patients was then analyzed for treatment adherence (Did they refill their prescription?), treatment consistency (Did they switch drugs?) and treatment persistence (Were they still filling prescriptions 12 months after their first prescription?)."

Online posting

Allergan reports fourth quarter and full-year 2019 financial results (PRNewswire) - "BOTOX® Therapeutic net revenues in the fourth quarter of 2019 were $463.0 million, an increase of 6.9 percent versus the prior year quarter...VRAYLAR® net revenues were $283.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, an increase of 88.1 percent from the prior year quarter. For full-year 2019, VRAYLAR® net revenues were $857.5 million, an increase of 76.0 percent from 2018...VIIBRYD®/FETZIMA® net revenues in the fourth quarter of 2019 were $114.2 million, an increase of 19.6 percent from the prior year quarter....RESTASIS® net revenues in the fourth quarter of 2019 were $309.0 million, a decrease of 4.9 percent versus the prior year quarter."

Commercial • Sales

Managing irregular corneas prior to cataract surgery: Algorithm and surgeons address OSD, DED before surgery (EyeWorld) - "'Dry eye and ocular surface disease are an epidemic in our current society,' Marjan Farid, MD, said....Although surgeons responding to ASCRS Clinical Surveys have acknowledged the importance of diagnosing and treating dry eye disease (DED), the majority also have said they do not have a uniform way to diagnose and treat DED, Francis Mah, MD, said....'The ASCRS Algorithm is a novel streamlined protocol for integrating OSD identification and management within the context of the standard preoperative refractive surgery patient visit,' Christopher E. Starr, MD, said."

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Ocular surface inflammation: Vicious cycle of ocular surface disruption (Ophthalmology Times) - "However, while dry eye is the stated problem among a major percentage of the patients presenting to clinical practices, numerous other ocular surface diseases are culprits in ocular surface inflammation, i.e., allergic conjunctivitis, episcleritis, scleritis, superficial punctate keratitis (from numerous causes), and toxicities from medications, wind, heat, or chemicals, according to Mark Milner, MD, FACS....Effective therapy for ocular surface inflammation should address one or more of the pathophysiologic factors involved and work to break the cycle of pro-inflammatory effects, Dr. Milner said."

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Glaucoma on the Surface: Comorbidities are inevitable, and we need to consciously look for them in every glaucoma patient (Review of Optometry) - "For glaucoma, consider preservative-free drops such as Zioptan (Akorn) and Cosopt PF (Akorn) or drops with non-BAK preservatives. A single agent that has the most IOP-lowering effect such as Vyzulta (Bausch + Lomb) or Rocklatan (Aerie) can help to avoid adding more drops to the regimen. Preservative-free compounded drops, such as the Imprimis triple or quad drops, may also be helpful options."

Online posting

Blog: Practice blueprint: Build the structure for routine dry eye care (Healio) - "Build a dedicated dry eye team: At some point, my colleagues and I realized that a dedicated care team would give both dry eye patients and physicians a better experience. Who should lead the team? Choose a clinician who has an interest in ocular surface disease and is excited to take care of dry eye patients. Choose technicians who are passionate about this topic, have a caring attitude and can make personal connections with patients. It’s also important to have one or two staff members serve as points of contact for patients’ questions after they leave the office."

Blog

Eye care moving toward multidose preservative-free bottles for medications, tears (Healio) - "The Novelia design is also in common usage; it is utilized in the production of Oasis Medical MDPF tears and Freshkote MDPF tears (Eyevance). These two bottles have the Novelia design in common but are made from different plastics. The Freshkote MDPF has more than 300 drops; the drop count in the Oasis Medical MDPF bottle is unknown. Eyevance and Oasis Medical are the only companies that are currently offering their artificial tears in the MDPF bottle while also distributing (either selling or sampling) that same tear in unit dose vials."

Online posting

Blog: A holistic approach to managing dry eye (Healio) - "If the patient’s problem is in an acute stage at the first visit, we might prescribe a topical steroid such as loteprednol to help bring down the inflammation. Other initial therapies include immunomodulators such as cyclosporine (Restasis, Allergan) or lifitegrast (Xiidra, Shire), which provide control of inflammation in the long term. Sometimes getting access to these medications can be frustrating for patients, so we have a point person in our practice to help with insurance-related issues so that patients can benefit from the excellent therapeutics we have today."

Blog

Probing the Role of Melanocortin Type 1 Receptor Agonists in Diverse Immunological Diseases. (PubMed, Front Pharmacol) - "PL-8177, dosed at 0.5, 1.5, and 5.0 μg, was assessed in a cannulated rat model of dinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (DNBS)-induced bowel inflammation versus vehicle and oral sulfasalazine. In the murine scopolamine-induced model of dry eye disease, PL-8331 reduced corneal fluorescein staining scores at all doses, significantly (P = 0.02) for the highest dose (1 × 10 mg⋅mL), and similarly to Restasis; Xiidra demonstrated no effect. The MC1r receptor agonists PL-8177 and PL-8331 exhibited actions similar to those of α-MSH in preventing and reversing intestinal and ocular inflammation in preclinical disease models."

Journal

DREAM: Fish oil works (Healio) - "Two large, complex trials reported their results in the fall. Both of them are instructive as we in eye care look at fish oil for DED. VITAL and REDUCE-IT both looked at the use of highly purified EPA as an adjunctive treatment for otherwise fully treated patients at risk for cardiac events (including death)."

Online posting