New Zealand researchers are investigating whether a US company's eye drops - touted to improve near vision without the need for reading glasses - stack up. Photo / 123RF

Could simple eye drops really save you from having to wear reading glasses?

That’s the promise of a new US breakthrough treatment – and one Kiwi researchers are set to take a closer look at, in a just-launched study.

US pharmaceutical company AbbVie’s Vuity eye drops, which have been granted FDA approval for prescription-only use, targets a condition that begins to affect all of us once we reach middle age: blurry near vision, or presbyopia.

Taken in daily doses in each eye and not yet available in New Zealand, the drops work by constricting the pupil to increase the depth of focus.

Theoretically, University of Auckland optometrist and physiology researcher Dr Alyssa Lie said, that should allow people to read up close without needing their reading glasses.

But there were questions as to whether the drops were effective as claimed in studies, which happened to be carried out by the product’s manufacturer.

Its clinical trials, involving around 750 people aged 40 to 55, found a single drop in each eye could improve near and intermediate vision for up to six hours, while maintaining distance vision.

No serious adverse events were also reported, while a minority of participants experienced headache or eye redness.

Lie said that, if her study confirmed Vuity’s efficacy, it could help fast-track their approval here.

But she was more interested in seeing how the agent in the drops – pilocarpine, which is already used to treat glaucoma here and MedSafe approved – affected the eye at a molecular level.

For her study, she was recruiting people in the US trials’ age range, who’d receive clinical eye exams before and after the drops had been applied.

After that, she’d carry out MRI brain scans with and without the drops to potentially identify any molecular changes.

“Our laboratory here previously looked at the effect of pilocarpine on the lenses of mice and rats, showing it changes the physiology of the lens and therefore has the potential to also enhance its optical properties,” she said.

“So, I thought I’d look into whether this was also the case for the human lens using MRI scans.

“This could offer a biomarker for developing other drugs that are not so reliant on shrinking the pupils down.

“There are downsides to that, such as cautions on night driving.”

Lie expected to have findings ready by the end of this year.