First commercially available iterations of PhotonUVC Vet, novel handheld device delivering contactless five-second UV light treatment into the eye, set to reach practices this month.<\/p>\n
Share
<\/p>\n
The PhotonUVC Vet, by Photon Therapeutics.<\/p>\n
A cutting-edge UVC light treatment for corneal infections could eventually remove the need for antibiotics, according to a vet helping to bring it to market.<\/strong><\/p>\n The first commercially available iterations of PhotonUVC Vet, a novel handheld device that delivers a contactless five-second ultraviolet light treatment into the eye, will reach practices this month.<\/p>\n Photon Therapeutics, which developed the product, was founded by two human ophthalmologists and is also exploring the device\u2019s potential applications in human medicine.<\/p>\n Chief executive and veterinary surgeon Mark Leddy said: \u201cThe future is super exciting, and the future hopefully will be to reduce [antibiotic usage]. We\u2019re on a mission, ultimately, to remove the need for antibiotics.\u201d<\/p>\n Targets<\/p>\n The UVC light used in the treatment selectively targets single-celled organisms while leaving animal cells unharmed.<\/p>\n Dr Leddy said the treatment has \u201cproved good efficacy against all the viruses, bacteria and fungi,\u201d notably including \u201call of the bacteria that have resistance to traditional antimicrobials\u201d.<\/p>\n He added: \u201cThere is no acquired resistance to UVC.\u201d<\/p>\n On PhotoUVC Vet, Dr Leddy said: \u201cWe have an antimicrobial, which potentially, if we use it, we won\u2019t create resistance to it.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd what we know is, if we stop using traditional antibiotics or we reduce their usage, we can reduce the acquisition of resistance, and that\u2019s becoming more important.\u201d<\/p>\n Validate<\/p>\n Prototypes of the device have been distributed to ophthalmology experts around the world to run more comprehensive studies and validate their work, but Dr Leddy said in small models in laboratory conditions \u201cwe have shown that the treatment is at least as effective as high frequency antibiotic drops\u201d.<\/p>\n Dr Leddy said the treatment will help reduce the bacterial load and could ease the burden on clients who may struggle to administer eye drops, although it should still be used in conjunction with antibiotics for the time being. PhotonUVC is said to be safe to use on younger and older animals, which are most susceptible to corneal infections.<\/p>\n Photon Therapeutics is actively looking at other applications for the technology beyond just treating the eyes, Dr Leddy added, although due to the limited depth the UVC can penetrate, it may only be able to treat \u201crelatively superficial\u201d conditions.<\/p>\n Vet show orders<\/p>\n The product launched for pre-orders at the London Vet Show in November last year, and manufacturing of the final production version began in May ahead of distribution in June.<\/p>\n Dr Leddy said the uptake across the veterinary sector is \u201cquite remarkable,\u201d with orders from the US, Spain, Italy, China and Peru.<\/p>\n Studies on the device\u2019s use in humans are set to begin in the coming weeks, firstly to verify healthy adult eyes can tolerate the treatment before treating patients with infectious keratitis later in the year.<\/p>\n Dr Leddy said: \u201cOur vision is for this device to be in the reach of every person, either vet or human clinician, who treats infectious keratitis.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want it to be with every first-line practitioner, every optometrist and we want it to be the go-to first-line treatment.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been built such that it could be picked up by a non-ophthalmologist, a trained nurse with five minutes\u2019 training, a trained vet with five minutes\u2019 training, and just pick it up and use it and it to be easy, safe and, most importantly, not stressful for the animal, either.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First commercially available iterations of PhotonUVC Vet, novel handheld device delivering contactless five-second UV light treatment into the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4315],"tags":[105,4326,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-177311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-medication","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114668175724889819","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}