Recognizing National Glaucoma Awareness Month

January was National Glaucoma Awareness Month and provided us an opportunity to spread the word and honor the millions of patients around the world who are impacted by this debilitating disease.  

Glaucoma refers to a group of eye diseases that can cause vision loss or blindness due to damage of the optic nerve. It is one of the leading causes of irreversible blindness in the United States. High intraocular pressure (IOP) is a common risk factor for glaucoma, which over time causes stress on the optic nerve and can lead to gradual vision loss. While there currently is no available cure, the condition can be treated and stabilized with early detection and treatment.  

More than three million Americans are living with glaucoma today — with estimates projecting that this number will rise to 6.3 million by 2050 — and the condition costs the U.S. economy $2.86 billion annually in direct costs and productivity losses. In nearly all cases, visual impairment from glaucoma is irreversible and it’s usually not until a significant amount of vision is lost that a patient realizes something is wrong. In fact, about 50% of people with glaucoma in the United States don’t even know they have the disease according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  

I learned this lesson first-hand when I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of glaucoma at a very young age. Over the years, my doctors and I struggled to find a treatment that would stabilize the condition, and eventually my left eye would become permanently blind and disfigured. But I was lucky. Before the condition could get worse, my doctors were able to prescribe me a new medication that had just been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) a year prior to reduce IOP in patients with my condition. The treatment worked, and since then I’ve been able to live a normal life.  

This one medicine is just one example of numerous efforts by biopharmaceutical companies to improve the lives of patients who are battling eye diseases. Excitingly, as of January 2023, there are 18 medicines in development to treat glaucoma that are either in clinical trials or under review by the FDA — part of the over 80 medicines in development for common eye conditions, including age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, diabetic macular edema and diabetic retinopathy. For patients like me, knowing this provides hope that one day treatment options will improve and individuals in similar situations won’t have to go through the same hardships as I did.