Since early 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved over a dozen new treatments for vision-related conditions, including dry eye disease (DED). That’s positive news for more than 16 million Americans diagnosed with the condition. As we recognize Dry Eye Awareness Month, it’s a good time to reflect on the progress in specialty therapy development.
“These innovations offer hope for broader and more sustained efficacy across the diverse and complex patient populations affected by dry-eye disease,” notes Dr. Sezen Karakus of Johns Hopkins’ Wilmer Eye Institute in Review of Ophthalmology.
Despite the breakthroughs, however, retroactive analysis of claims data shows that more than 60% of patients with DED stopped treatment within a year, with the average discontinuation rate ranging between one to three months, depending on the drug prescribed.
As adoption curves plateau and abandonment rates climb, it’s essential to address misconceptions about treatment access and adherence, so barriers don’t come between your therapies and the patients who need them.
The U.S. ophthalmic drugs market is projected to have a compound annual growth rate of 6% from 2025 to 2030. This represents a major opportunity for pharmaceutical companies as the U.S. dry eye syndrome market alone is expected to reach $3.47 billion by 2030.
But first, let’s dispel myths that keep market access teams, brand managers, and patient support programs from achieving their full potential.
When prior authorization takes a week or longer, patients may abandon therapy—or switch to a competing drug. These delays can hurt your brand’s performance and patient outcomes. The challenge, as Eyes on Eyecare put it, is that pursuing PAs is “like a game of whack-a-mole between insurance companies, pharmacies, and patients.”
With an end-to-end engagement platform, you can make a positive impact at the moment of prescribing with in-workflow messaging. If a drug requires PA, a simple prompt—like urging the prescriber to include the ICD-10 code—can speed up approvals or even immediately meet the requirement. Patients benefit, too. With clear updates while a PA is pending, they’re more likely to stay on course instead of giving up.
Physician engagement is important, but patients also need to understand why the therapy matters. While many see dry-eye symptoms as a nuisance, they can lead to significant health issues if not treated. This perception gap directly affects patient access and your brand performance metrics.
That’s where educational resources—sent via text message directly to the patient’s phone moments after a prescription is written—make a difference. You can reinforce the importance of proactive treatment by helping patients see the bigger picture of disease progression and the unique benefits of DED specialty therapy.
Despite prescriber outreach and direct-to-consumer advertising, many patients are still unaware of patient support programs, manufacturer copay cards and coupons, or other financial assistance resources. In fact, FiercePharma reports that only 3% of patients are using patient support programs, despite pharmaceutical companies investing upwards of $5 billion annually on these initiatives.
This lack of awareness has serious consequences. Patients facing cost barriers for prescribed therapies may abandon treatment or resort to rationing doses. Analysis of 73,356 patients prescribed a DED specialty therapy found that more than half did not refill, with nearly a quarter of those patients saying they abandoned the therapy or switched to an alternative drug due to cost concerns.
Connecting patients to available resources moments after the prescription is written helps overcome these financial concerns they can start and stay on therapy.
Even with insurance, patients often face high out-of-pocket costs for specialty therapy. Here’s what this means for your bottom line: for medications with an out-of-pocket cost greater than $124, the abandonment rate is 45% or higher. Adding to cost insecurity is the fact that patients diagnosed with DED often have co-morbidities that increase the number of prescriptions they take and their overall healthcare expenses. Conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, among others, either directly affect tear production or require medications that can worsen dry eye symptoms as a side effect.
Simple tools that connect prescribers and patients to financial support upfront can keep more patients on therapy—and protect your brand’s growth.
The specialty therapy landscape in ophthalmology demands a new vision—one that recognizes patient access as the key to market success. By addressing these myths head-on with the right message at the right moment, pharmaceutical companies can:
The future of specialty therapy success requires more than incremental improvements—it demands a fundamental shift in how we approach patient access and adherence.
Discover how the Timely end-to-end engagement platform helps patients get started and stay on medications while helping you achieve your market potential in specialty ophthalmology.