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Pharmaceutical challenges and perspectives in developing ophthalmic drug formulations

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Abstract

Ocular drug delivery has been widely recognized as an attractive route for drug administration for cures of ocular diseases. Overall, designing an effective therapy to cure ocular diseases has been considered as a formidable task. Even though some infectious or inflammatory eye diseases could be alleviated by eye drops or ointments, achieving the required therapeutic efficacy along with ocular bioavailability remains a challenge due to the numerous anatomical and physiological barriers prevailing in the eye. Drug delivery to the posterior segment of the eye is yet a more challenging task. In this context, a better understanding of physiologic natures of the eyes and ocular pharmacokinetics would facilitate the development of new drug delivery systems to treat various vision-threatening disorders. For the effective drug delivery to target sites and to enhance the ocular bioavailability, recent progress in formulation strategies using nanotechnologies holds promises in terms of devising improved ophthalmic medicines. Hence, this review presents an overview of various aspects of ocular drug delivery, with a specific emphasis on nanocarrier-based strategies, including physiological barriers in eyes and conventional drug formulations. Recent research on sustained, controlled, and targeted systems for ocular drug delivery was updated as well.

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[Reproduced with modifications from Liu et al. (2012), with permission]

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by Grants from the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (NRF-2017R1C1B5015491 to Kyoung Ah Min and NRF-2015R1C1A1A02036781 to Meong Cheol Shin).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Pooja Maharjan and Kwan Hyung Cho authors contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Pharmacy and Inje Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research, Inje University, 197 Injero, Gimhae, Gyeongnam, 621-749, Republic of Korea

    Pooja Maharjan, Kwan Hyung Cho, Anjila Maharjan & Kyoung Ah Min

  2. College of Pharmacy and Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, Gyeongnam, 660-701, Republic of Korea

    Meong Cheol Shin

  3. College of Pharmacy, Sunchon National University, Suncheon, Jeonnam, 540-950, Republic of Korea

    Cheol Moon

Authors
  1. Pooja Maharjan
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  2. Kwan Hyung Cho
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  3. Anjila Maharjan
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  4. Meong Cheol Shin
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  5. Cheol Moon
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  6. Kyoung Ah Min
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kyoung Ah Min.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Maharjan, P., Cho, K.H., Maharjan, A. et al. Pharmaceutical challenges and perspectives in developing ophthalmic drug formulations. J. Pharm. Investig. 49, 215–228 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40005-018-0404-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40005-018-0404-6

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