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

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.