Newly launched the week before the CCLSNZ conference, Systane Ultra preservative-free lubricant eye drops for dry eye are now available in a multi-dose 10ml bottle. Key to the breakthrough is the patented Pureflow technology which features a one-way valve on the tip of the bottle to prevent contaminated liquid entering the container after the drops have been dispensed, said Alcon’s Deanna Graham. This, combined with the tip’s fine silicon membrane, to filter returned air to further prevent contamination, allows the product to be preservative free. The bottle is also easy to squeeze and features a low-profile blue tip instead of the normal longer white tip, said Graham, so you can’t poke it in your eye and you can see where the tip for more accurate drop instillation. As with other Systane products, the drops are also safe for use rewetting soft contact lenses.
In other news, Alcon ANZ’s head of professional affairs, Helen Gleave, discussed the company’s latest research into Alcon’s Precision1 contact lenses during a sponsor presentation at the conference. The research (Hart et al, Tribology Letters Oct 2020) discovered that Precision1’s Smartsurface technology, which provides a permanent, micro-thin layer of moisture on the lens’ surface, helps reduce shear stress and thus damage to corneal epithelial cells in an in vitro model. “Surface gel layers with a large polymer mesh size and high-water content are shown to be an effective approach to lower the contact pressure, lower the friction coefficient and thereby lower the shear stress and cell damage,” concluded the authors. To test the hypothesis in the real world, however, requires clinical trials.
