Challenges facing ophthalmic start‐up companies in developing new devices or medicines

tudes, the cabin pressure can decrease about 200 mmHg in a few minutes (Dieckert et al. 1986), whereas meteorological alterations of the atmospheric pressure change slower and only in a magnitude of 20–30 mmHg. Nevertheless, in a gas-filled sphere with rigid walls, even a slow decrease in the ambient air pressure would result in an increase in IOP. However, such a model sphere does not reflect the situation in the eye correctly. The fact that even an alteration of 200 mmHg of the surrounding atmospheric pressure in a time frame of 1 hr results in a much lower increase in IOP can most likely be attributed to the existence of compensatory mechanisms, such as increased aqueous humour drain, scleral expansion and choroid compression as described by Lincoff (Lincoff et al. 1989). Accordingly, during flights (Kokame & Ing 1994) or travelling in high altitude (Ferrini et al. 2010), a transient IOP decompensation in gas-filled eyes can be seen, but no influence of the meteorological variation in the atmospheric pressure could be found in this study.