Inkjet drug printing onto contact lenses: Deposition optimisation and non-invasive dose verification

Thomas D Pollard; Iria Seoane-Viaño; Jun Jie Ong; Patricija Januskaite; Sahar Awwad; Mine Orlu; Manuel F Bande; Abdul W Basit; Alvaro Goyanes

doi:10.1016/j.ijpx.2022.100150

Inkjet drug printing onto contact lenses: Deposition optimisation and non-invasive dose verification

Int J Pharm X. 2022 Dec 20:5:100150. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpx.2022.100150. eCollection 2023 Dec.

Authors

Thomas D Pollard¹, Iria Seoane-Viaño^{1

2}, Jun Jie Ong¹, Patricija Januskaite¹, Sahar Awwad¹, Mine Orlu¹, Manuel F Bande³, Abdul W Basit^{1

4}, Alvaro Goyanes^{1

4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmaceutics, UCL School of Pharmacy, University College London, 29-39 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AX, UK.
² Department of Pharmacology, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Technology, Paraquasil Group (GI-2109), Faculty of Pharmacy, and Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (IDIS), University of Santiago de Compostela (USC), Santiago de Compostela 15782, Spain.
³ Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Santiago de Compostela, Ramon Baltar S/N, Santiago de Compostela 15706, Spain.
⁴ FabRx Ltd., Henwood House, Henwood, Ashford TN24 8DH, UK.
⁵ Departamento de Farmacología, Farmacia y Tecnología Farmacéutica, I+D Farma Group (GI-1645), Facultad de Farmacia, iMATUS and Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (IDIS), Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (USC), Santiago de Compostela 15782, Spain.

Abstract

Inkjet printing has the potential to advance the treatment of eye diseases by printing drugs on demand onto contact lenses for localised delivery and personalised dosing, while near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy can further be used as a quality control method for quantifying the drug but has yet to be demonstrated with contact lenses. In this study, a glaucoma therapy drug, timolol maleate, was successfully printed onto contact lenses using a modified commercial inkjet printer. The drug-loaded ink prepared for the printer was designed to match the properties of commercial ink, whilst having maximal drug loading and avoiding ocular inflammation. This setup demonstrated personalised drug dosing by printing multiple passes. Light transmittance was found to be unaffected by drug loading on the contact lens. A novel dissolution model was built, and in vitro dissolution studies showed drug release over at least 3 h, significantly longer than eye drops. NIR was used as an external validation method to accurately quantify the drug dose. Overall, the combination of inkjet printing and NIR represent a novel method for point-of-care personalisation and quantification of drug-loaded contact lenses.

Keywords: 2D printing; DMSO, dimethyl sulfoxide; HPLC, high performance liquid chromatography; NIR, near-infrared; Ophthalmic and ocular drug delivery; PAT, process analytical technology; PBS, phosphate-buffered saline; PLS, partial least squares; Personalized healthcare; Point-of-care dispensing; Printing medicines; Process analytical technology (PAT) tools; RMSE, root mean square error; SCL, soft contact lens.