Glaucoma Start-Ups Reach Critical Mass
Article preview from Start-Up - July/August 2008
Having validated high intraocular pressure as a certain target for intervention, the Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study spurred on a new wave of innovation in medical devices for glaucoma. Numerous start-ups formed five or six years ago are now beginning to run their devices through clinical trials. Indeed, the field seems to have gained a critical mass of attention. Start-Up has identified more than a dozen emerging device companies treating glaucoma, and the disease remains a target for development programs and acquisitions on the pharmaceutical side as well.
Article preview from Start-Up - July/August 2008
Glaucoma Start-Ups Reach Critical Mass
Device companies rise up against a "sneaky" disease.
Glaucoma is known as the "sneak thief of sight"; it encroaches upon the vision of patients gradually and unnoticed until it's too late. Worldwide, 70 million people are living with glaucoma, and almost seven million have gone blind from the disease.
Half of glaucoma patients remain undiagnosed, and that gap is the hallmark of a clinical field in an early stage of evolution. But the field is gaining momentum; six years ago, a ground-breaking study published by the National Institutes of Health's National Eye Institute, the Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study (OHTS), began to reveal the first concrete findings about a disease for which the etiology is unknown. While it as generally known that the chief symptom of glaucoma is high intraocular pressure (IOP), the 1,636-patient OHTS study clearly implicated ocular hypertension in the progression of glaucoma.
Elevated intraocular pressure results from a build up of the liquid in the eye known as the aqueous humor. Aqueous humor is secreted by the ciliary body of the eye, flows into the anterior chamber, and is supposed to flow out through the angle formed by the iris and the sclera into a spongy filtering meshwork called the trabeculum. From there, it passes into Schlemm's canal and out into venous circulation. Normal IOP is between 10 and 20 mm Hg. Sustained periods of IOP greater than 21 mm Hg or even erratic spikes of high IOP are thought to damage the optic nerve and eventually cause blindness that begins on the sides of the visual field and moves gradually to the center.
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Companies mentioned in this article:
Glaukos Corp., I-Therapeutix Inc., National Institutes of Health, Novartis AG, Opko Health Inc., Vidus Ocular Inc., QLT Inc., Sensimed AG, Solx Inc., Transcend Medical Inc., iScience Interventional
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