Ophthalmic devices for sustained delivery of active compounds

1. An ophthalmic product, comprising:

a sealed package including a packaging solution and a soft hydrogel contact lens, wherein the hydrogel contact lens comprises a polymer matrix and a guest material which is not covalently linked to the polymer matrix but distributed therein,

wherein the hydrogel contact lens has a capability of gradually releasing the guest material during wear over at least about 6 hours after storing in the packaging solution for at least about one month,

wherein the hydrogel contact lens is produced by cast-molding in a mold of a fluid prepolymer composition without being subjected to any extraction processes,

wherein the prepolymer composition comprises the guest material and an actinically-crosslinkable prepolymer from which the polymer matrix is formed by polymerization,

wherein the guest material comprises a drug which is free of any groups capable of being actinically crosslinked with the actinically-crosslinkable prepolymer and present in an amount sufficient to be released from the contact lens over at least about 6 hours of wearing time,

wherein the actinically-crosslinkable prepolymer is a polyhydroxyl compound having a molecular weight of at least about 2000 and comprising from about 0.5 to about 80%, based on the number of hydroxyl groups in the poly(vinyl alcohol), of units of the formula I, and II, I and Ill, or I and II and Ill

in which

the molecular weight refers to a weight average molecular weight, Mw, determined by gel permeation chromatography,

R is linear or branched alkylene having up to 12 carbon atoms,

R 1 is hydrogen or lower alkyl having up to seven carbon atoms,

R 2 is an ethylenically unsaturated, electron-withdrawing, crosslinkable radical having up to 25 carbon atoms,

R 3 is hydrogen, a C 1 -C 6 alkyl group or a cycloalkyl group,

R 7 is a primary, secondary, tertiary amino group, or a quaternary amino group of the formula N + (R′) 3 X − , in which each R′, independently of the others, is hydrogen or a C 1 -C 4 alkyl radical and X is a counterion,

R 8 is the radical of a monobasic, dibasic or tribasic, saturated or unsaturated, aliphatic or aromatic organic acid or sulfonic acid.

2. The ophthalmic product of claim 1 , wherein the fluid prepolymer composition is an aqueous solution, wherein the actinically-crosslinkable prepolymer is water soluble.

3. The ophthalmic product of claim 1 , wherein the actinically-crosslinkable prepolymer is a water-soluble prepolymer selected from the group consisting of: a water-soluble crosslinkable poly(vinyl alcohol) prepolymer; a water-soluble vinyl group-terminated polyurethane; derivatives of a polyvinyl alcohol, polyethyleneimine or polyvinylamine; a water-soluble crosslinkable polyurea prepolymer; crosslinkable polyacrylamide; crosslinkable statistical copolymers of vinyl lactam, methyl methacrylate and a comonomer; crosslinkable copolymers of vinyl lactam, vinyl acetate and vinyl alcohol; polyether-polyester copolymers with crosslinkable side chains; branched polyalkylene glycol-urethane prepolymers; polyalkylene glycol-tetra(meth)acrylate prepolymers; crosslinkable polyallylamine gluconolactone prepolymers, and mixtures thereof.

4. The ophthalmic product of claim 1 , wherein the actinically-crosslinkable prepolymer is a silicone-containing prepolymer.

5. The ophthalmic product of claim 1 , wherein the guest material has a kinetically-unfavorable passive diffusion out of the contact lens, characterized by a ratio of eye blink-activated diffusion to passive diffusion being about 1.6 or greater, determined after a cumulative extraction period of at least about 3 hours.

6. The ophthalmic product of claim 5 , wherein the ratio of eye blink-activated diffusion to passive diffusion is about 2.4 or greater, determined after a cumulative extraction period of at least about 4 hours.

7. The ophthalmic product of claim 5 , wherein the guest material comprises a mucin-like material, an ophthalmically beneficial material, or a mixture thereof, wherein the mucin-like material is polyglycolic acid, polylactide, collagen, gelatin, or a mixture thereof, wherein the ophthalmically-beneficial material is 2-pyrrolidone-5-carboxylic acid (PCA) or salt thereof, an amino acid or salt thereof, an alpha hydroxyl acid or salt thereof, a linoleic acid or salt thereof, a gamma linoleic acid or salt thereof, a vitamin, or a mixture thereof.

8. The ophthalmic product of claim 1 , wherein the soft hydrogel contact lens has a permeability-control coating capable of controlling the diffusion rate of the guest material out of the soft hydrogel contact lens.

9. The ophthalmic product of claim 1 , wherein the soft hydrogel contact lens has an asymmetrical coating composed of an anterior surface coating and a posterior coating, wherein the anterior and posterior surface coatings have a different permeability for the guest material.