e-Pharmatimes

  Ophthalmic drug delivery is one of the interesting and challenging endeavors facing the pharmaceutical scientist today. The anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry of the eye render this organ highly impervious to foreign substances. A significant challenge to the formulator is to circumvent the protective barriers of the eye without causing permanent tissue damage. Conventional eye drops, suspension, and ointment dosage forms no longer constitute optimal therapy for these indications. Research and development efforts to design better therapeutic systems particularly targeted to posterior segment are the primary focus of this text. The goal of pharmacotherapeutics is to treat a disease in a consistent and predictable fashion, assuming that a correlation exists between the concentration of a drug at its intended site of action and the resulting pharmacological effect. The specific aim of designing a therapeutic system is to achieve an optimal concentration of a drug at the acti...