AOA 2023: Pooled analysis of Gobi and Mojave studies for NOV03 treatment of MGD

Ahmad M. Fahmy, OD, FAAO, Dipl ABO, caught up with Optometry Times to tell us all about his ePoster, "Perfluorohexyloctane (NOV03) for dry eye disease associated with Meibomian gland dysfunction: Pooled analysis of Gobi and Mojave studies," which he presented at the 2023 AOA Optometry's Meeting in Washington, DC.

Video transcript

Editor's note: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Hi, my name is Ahmad Fahmy. I'm a doctor of optometry at Minnesota Eye Consultants. I am the cofounder of Eyes-On Dry Eye and founder of the Twin Cities Ocular Surface Disease Symposium.

I'm really excited about this data. It's a really neat poster that we presented that has pooled results from 2 very well-done clinical studies that looked at perfluorohexyloctane, which is a really innovative new medication that is water soluble, preservative free. We looked at the primary endpoints. We're looking at the visual analogue scale, the scores, and looking at the mean change from baseline and corneal fluorescein staining. Those were the primary endpoints.

The secondary endpoints looked at those same two data points, but at week 15, and then also looked at central corneal staining, and then looking more specifically into irritation type symptoms at day 15. And so those are the primary and secondary endpoints, it met statistical significance in all of these data points. And again, using a water soluble and a nonpreserved lubricating drop, I think that's going to be really a welcome addition to what we currently offer a lot of our patients that have evaporative dry eye.

This molecule has a very low surface tension, and so it really spreads across the surface of the eye really well, and does a great job of preserving the tear film. And so we see patients all the time in clinic that have, you know, basically refractory to some of the things that we're offering them in ocular surface disease treatment, especially those patients that have a strong evaporative component.

We do a lot of in-office procedures and really focus on eyelid health, and getting their meibomian glands to deliver healthier secretions to the surface of the eye. And even using scleral contact lenses, there are all kinds of solutions that we've come up with that are really helpful. But in my experience, even with some of these really neat, innovative treatments some patients whose refractory to all that and boy, wouldn't it be nice to have an eyedropper that we can add to what we're already using, that would really preserve that tear film even more for some of these patients.

So I see really wide clinical use, because MGD is such a big part—and evaporative dry eye is such a big part of ocular surface disease. I think that the main takeaway from this is that this is really an eye drop for the treatment of evaporative dry eye, but I see it really as a kind of a new first in line treatment in terms of just a new novel way of trying to treat evaporative dry eye. So I think its applications and its effectiveness in my mind, I think it's going to be very different than what we're already offering. And so it'll be a really great addition to what we're already doing.