ADVANCED OCULAR DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEMS AND EMERGING THERAPEUTICS IN OPHTHALMIC DISEASE MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Ophthalmic diseases are one of the biggest public health problems, with 2.2 billion people globally having vision impairment or blindness. The key disease groups (age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy (DR), glaucoma, dry eye disease (DED) and thyroid eye disease (TED) have common mechanisms of chronic inflammation, neurovascular injury, oxidative stress and pathological angiogenesis. Although the treatment options for anti-VEGF drugs have come a long way in the last 20 years, there remain significant issues such as treatment burden, poor adherence, and the lack of any cure, which restrict the outcomes of treatment. This review covers the pathogenesis, classification, conventional and emerging approaches to the treatment of ophthalmic diseases, nanotechnology based drug delivery, challenges to therapy, recent patent landscape and market dynamics in the field of ophthalmic diseases systematically. We share information on the next generation of transformative technologies, such as AAV-based gene therapies (4D-150, RGX-314, ixo-vec), CRISPR-Cas13 RNA editing, sustained-release ocular implants, lipid nanoparticle delivery platforms and AI-assisted diagnostics, all of which mark a shift from episodic suppression to lasting disease modification.