ESCRS 2023: Olivier Benoit says Ciliatech’s glaucoma implant defied his expectations

Olivier Benoit, president of Ciliatech, brought new data on the company’s Cilioscleral Interposition Device (CID) to Vienna, Austria ahead of the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS) meeting. We sat down to talk about his expectations for the next few months, and years, of research.

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

Olivier Benoit: We came here to introduce the audience to the latest results we have with our devices for the glaucoma surgery, which is named CID. We have shown results of 2-year studies, 2 years' follow up, of the first generation, which is delivering very good IOP... very good results on IOP and medication reduction. And also the results of a third study, a 1-year follow up, where we have modified the design and results are even better than before. And the good news is that it works also for a narrow angle, not only the open-angle [glaucoma].

What is surprising everyone is that we can achieve that level of performance without having to open the anterior chamber of the eye. This is something that has never been done before. It was a challenge, at the beginning, to convince everyone we wanted to do that and that it may work. But after 2 years follow-up, it really delivers wonderful. And this is very–this is a surprise. It is against everyone's belief that it may work. But it does, very.

And it provides many advantages. Preserving the anterior chamber is great, because you don't have any endothelial cell loss issues at first. And second, the anterior chamber is the place where you have the most movement in the eye. If you preserve it, then the eye after the surgery is very calm, and you have less complications. And the beauty of it is that, in regards to the IOP and medications, it is extremely good. But we still have a lot on our plate.

We have to, we will obviously continue the follow up of the patients that we enroll in our studies yet. So we want to go until 3, 4, 5 years of follow up. We are very positive that the results we've shown so far will be maintained over time because the trends are very stable. And on top of that, we will continue investigations in other countries with other surgeons to show that it can be used in many hands, in many eyes, and deliver the same performance. So we have quite a substantial clinical program ahead of us. And beside that, business-wise, we are preparing to get a CE mark, so that's also tough work to achieve. But we have great expectations. We believe we could be on the market in 2025.