De-risking drug injection into the eye for Ripple Therapeutics

Intravitreal injections, where a fluid or an implant is injected into the posterior chamber of the eye, have become a cornerstone in the treatment of many eye diseases.

On the back of this progress, the number of injections carried out by ophthalmologists has rapidly grown from thousands to millions per year [1]. This trend is set to continue through the 2020s with the rise of diabetic and age-associated eye diseases and as further eye diseases can be controlled with intraocular drug injection [2].

The benefit of targeted delivery close to the retina is good drug efficacy and, for many treatments, minimal systemic side effects [3]. But regular, often monthly, injections into the eye are a burden for patients. Not all keep to their treatment schedule, leading to preventable deterioration in their sight and other complications that place avoidable strain on healthcare providers and systems.

Ripple Therapeutics develops extended-release drug delivery solutions to address these challenges and take advantage of future growth in the intraocular drug delivery market. Specially formulated pro-drug implants predictably release the active ingredient over a period of months, without the need for drug carriers or other substances to improve the formulation.

For patients, this promises fewer injections into the eye, a better quality of life and better outcomes, while healthcare systems can direct resources to treat patients with other needs. Growth in the volume of eye injections, which are increasingly performed by ophthalmic nurses, is also moving the usability of the devices to deliver implants into focus as a point of differentiation among device manufacturers.

Ripple Therapeutics and TTP have worked together on a series of projects to advance intraocular drug delivery.

Initially, Ripple Therapeutics tasked TTP’s eyecare and medical device experts with a development sprint to develop novel solutions for securing, and then safely releasing, a delicate intravitreal drug implant in an existing device.

In anticipation of future opportunities, Ripple Therapeutics also asked TTP to develop new concepts for retaining drug implants in injector devices that can work with a variety of implant dimensions.

TTP also evaluated the feasibility of one of these concepts for delivering a drug implant barely thicker than a human hair through a series of trials that were designed to give Ripple Therapeutics confidence in the concept and, at the same time, inform medical device development underway at Ripple Therapeutics.