The concept of “UV protecting eye drops” is quite novel. Multiple reputable companies have previously tried to develop such a product, but they have not been able to come up with an eye drop that provides for meaningful ocular surface protection without causing severe irritation, stinging, and blurriness of vision.
UVista SPF: Long-Lasting UVB Eye Protection
The challenge behind producing such a product is due to the chemical properties of existing sunscreen agents that are on the market and FDA approved: they are either too irritating to the eyes, they don’t provide for significant sun protection, and/or they lack adequate photostability (“stamina”) to keep protecting the ocular surface for a significant amount of time (hours) and need to be instilled as frequently as every 15 minutes to be effective.
UVista SPF Eye Drops is the only product on the market that protects the eyes from HIGH ENERGY UVB Light Rays and stays on the ocular surface for nearly 2 hours per instillation.
Competing products use Riboflaving and only protect the eye from blue light and low energy (UVA) light that has not been shown to cause significant damage to the ocular surface. Further, Riboflavin is a very “fragile” sunscreen agent and degrades very quickly when exposed to intense UV light, therefore, it is not a very effective agent to protect the ocular surface in people who work/play in hot/sunny climates https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4168737/
Please See Publication Below
Test articles
- UVista Artificial Tear Formulation with 0.25% 2-phenylbenzimidazole-5-sulfonic acid (PBSA), Lot iUV.2132.BR.02.230914 – packaged in Soft White BP BC/Cap PF bottle; it was provided to Intellebio LLC by Dr. Ebbie Soroudi on November 18, 2023. PBSA (CAS# 27503-81-7) is UVB/UVAII sunscreen active with Specific Absorbance, 1%/1cm at 302±2 nm in the range 990-1000
- Drop Defence® Anti UV Eye Drops Lot 011 22/A, Exp. Date May 2025 – a commercial benchmark
According to https://servimed-industrial.com/wp-content/uploads/DROP-defence-Brochure-2021-eng_web.pdf
“…DROP Defence® is an anti-UV ophthalmic protective solution based on Riboflavin sodium phosphate 0.05%, Vitamin E TPGS, MSM, amino acids and Hyaluronic Acid.
DROP defence® is a unique and certified Personal Protective Equipment that protects cornea, crystalline lens and retina against UV radiation, blue light, artificial light sources, and prolonged sun exposure, preventing damages like photo-keratitis, photo-keratoconjunctivitis, cataract and AMD. DROP defence® keeps the ocular surface hydrated and protected…”
Equipment
SILVER-Nova Compact research grade spectrometer for > 190-1110nm range, TE cooled 2048 element CCD detector with enhanced UV coating & detector lens assembly for extreme sensitivity, 600g/mm dual blaze grating for super range efficiency, integrated order sorting filters, slit-25, USB-2 interface cable, +5v adapter
Preconfigured Dual UV-VIS lamp setup includes the high power SL3 Deuterium lamp with installed DCX amplification lens and Filter-U330 for deuterium spike removal; Vertical transmission fixture with variable path length, includes 2 collimating lenses; 4-way fiber optic cuvette holder (From StellarNet Inc., Tampa, FL, USA)
FireflySci Type 42- 0.2 mm demountable disc-shaped circular dichroism quartz cuvettes, close top; light path 0.2 mm; outer diameter 22 mm; inner diameter 16 mm; capacity 0.04 ml (https://www.fireflysci.com/)
Experimental
In vitro evaluations were conducted in November-December, 2023 and June-July, 2024.
UV Absorbance spectra of the undiluted test articles were recorded in FireflySci Type 42 disc-shaped circular quartz cuvette with surface area 2 cm2 and path length 0.2 mm, which holds maximum 0.04 ml of liquid.
Distilled water was used as a reference.
Integration time was 60 milliseconds; average of 5 measurements was utilized – with temperature compensation “on”.
According to the literature, the mean surface area of men and women eyeballs exposed to the direct effects of external factors in the working environment is in the range of 172–182 mm2 or 1.72- 1.82 cm2
[Tadeusz Juliszewski, Filip Kadłuczka & Paweł Kiełbasa (2016) Determining eyeball surface area directly exposed to the effects of external factors, International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics, 22:2, 279-282, DOI: 10.1080/10803548.2015.1136110].
The goal of the in vitro evaluation was to assess maximum absorbance potential of eye drops under conditions imitating their immediate single drop instillation. Typical volume of eye drop – 0.04 ml was applied on a surface area similar to the surface of the eyeball (~2 cm2).
It should be noted that the eye blinking and dilution with tears will take place in vivo after the eye drop instillation, and therefore reduce their absorbance.
Absorbance spectra of the undiluted test articles are presented in Graphs 1-3 below.
Graph 1. Absorbance spectra of UVista in UVB-UVA2 region
Graph 2. Absorbance spectra of Drop Defence® in UVB-UVA-VIS region
Graph 3. Absorbance spectra of UVista (orange) and Drop Defence® (blue) in UVB-UVA2 region
Percent UVB sunlight blocked by the test articles was calculated according to the equation below:
Note. Standard Airmass 1.5 (AM 1.5) Solar Irradiance, Watts per Square Meter per nanometer was obtained from ASTM G173-03 Reference Spectra (Direct+circumsolar W * m-2 * nm-1) available at https://www.nrel.gov/grid/solar-resource/spectra-am1.5.html
Conclusions
The maximum absorbance potential of eye drops determined in vitro under conditions mimicking immediate instillation of a single drop, and calculations according to the equation above indicate that UVista could attenuate ~96% of UVB (290-320 nm) sunlight, and Drop Defence® ~11% of UVB (290-320 nm) sunlight.
It should be noted that UVB at 300 nm is roughly 600 times more biologically effective at damaging ocular tissue than UVA2 at 325 nm [Young A. Acute effects of UVR on human eyes and skin. Prog Biophys Mol Biol, 2006: 92:80-5].
