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BLOG: Why dry eye is a killer, and Shire’s good news benefits us all
About 10 years ago, a patient quality-of-life study by Rhett Schiffman changed the way I think about ocular surface disease. It showed that the lifestyle impact on patients who have moderate to severe dry eye was comparable to that of class 3 to 4 angina pectoris. I had always thought of dry eye as an annoyance to patients and a distraction to me in my surgical practice, but people who suffer regularly with ocular surface symptoms are truly debilitated. Just as patients with heart failure, they’re unable to take part in activities they enjoy because dry eye simply takes the joy out of their lives.
Knowing this, I think of any new, effective treatment for dry eye disease as truly a breakthrough.
In October, Shire announced results of its OPUS-3 phase 3 study of the safety and efficacy of lifitegrast 5%, a new drug for treatment of dry eye. This new compound, which regulates receptors on the surface of T-cells to control the inflammatory component of dry eye, may improve dry eye signs and symptoms more quickly than Restasis (cyclosporine ophthalmic emulsion 0.05%, Allergan), a tried and true tool for dry eye management. The study’s data show symptomatic improvement in as little as 2 weeks among treated subjects.
The news of this trial’s success is exciting because the company hopes to launch this new product in 2016. After the previous FDA study of lifitegrast failed to meet its primary endpoints, this study became the next hope for approval in the near term.
Restasis is an extremely effective and valuable tool, but we’re compromised as physicians whenever we have a single agent to treat any disease state. Few of us are old enough to remember when we had only physostigmine and epinephrine to treat glaucoma. These drugs were effective, but they didn’t work for everyone. Approval of lifitegrast would give us clinicians and our patients an expanding array of options to treat this most frustrating and progressive disease.
As Darrell White has suggested in his Sept. 25 “The Dry Eye” column in OSN, I, too, am collecting names of patients in my practice who may benefit from this drug once it’s approved, hopefully next year. News like this doesn’t come often, and for so many of our patients, lifitegrast’s success is more than just good news. It’s life-changing.
Disclosure: Hovanesian reports he is a consultant for Allergan and Shire.