This invention is in the area of medical devices, in particular in the
area of medical devices for drug delivery, more in particular for
controlled release of drugs to the eye. Delivery of drugs to the anterior
side of the eye is routinely done with eye drops, but this method results
in low bioavailability and low patient compliance. Devices that address
these problems have been described for the delivery of drugs to the eye.
One of such devices, called the OphthaCoil, consists of a thin metallic
wire, which is coiled and carries a drug-loaded adherent hydrogel coating
on its surface. Surprisingly it has now been found that the drug loading
capacity can be dramatically increased by filling the lumen of the coil
with micro-particles such as microspheres that contain the drug of
choice.