Ophthalmic drug delivery
The present invention includes and provides a method of delivering a medicament to an eye of a subject in need thereof a solution, the method comprising: (a) providing droplets containing the medicament with a specified average size and average initial ejecting velocity; and (b) delivering the medicament to the eye, where the droplets deliver a percentage of the ejected mass of the droplets to the eye.
1. A method of delivering droplets to a surface of an eye of a subject in need thereof, the method comprising:
(a) generating the droplets via a piezoelectric actuated ejection device, wherein:
(i) the droplets:
(ia) comprise an ophthalmic composition comprising tropicamide and phenylephrine hydrochloride;
(ib) have a total volume of 5 μl to 10 μl;
(ic) have a an average droplet size from 30 microns to 100 microns; and
(id) have an average initial electing velocity from 1 m/s to about 5/ms; and
(ii) the piezoelectric actuated ejection device comprises a housing; a reservoir containing the ophthalmic composition disposed within the housing; and an ejector mechanism fluidly coupled to the reservoir, the ejector mechanism comprising an ejector plate comprising a plurality of openings formed through its thickness, and a piezoelectric actuator coupled to the ejector plate, the actuator being operable to oscillate the ejector plate at a frequency to generate the droplets from the composition upon actuation; and
(b) delivering the droplets to the surface of the eye of the subject.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the ophthalmic composition comprises about 2.5% phenylephrine hydrochloride and about 1% tropicamide.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the ophthalmic composition further comprises a preservative.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the ophthalmic composition comprises 0.1% or less of the preservative.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the ophthalmic composition is a solution.
6. The method of claim 2 , wherein the ophthalmic composition is a solution.