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An Exceptional Partnership: The Alan S. Crandall Center for Glaucoma Innovation
As the global expert on glaucoma therapeutics, Dr. Ahmed aims to change that. His partnership with the Moran Eye Center will create a glaucoma center of excellence to advance patient care.
Under Dr. Ahmed’s direction, the Alan S. Crandall Center for Glaucoma Innovation will seek a cure as it finds new ways to diagnose and treat glaucoma earlier in the disease process and with better outcomes.
The Crandall Center has Four Main Initiatives:
—GLAUCOMA THERAPEUTICS
—TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH
—NEUROPROTECTION-BASED THERAPIES
—GLOBAL CARE
The John A. Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
Visionary Leadership
When Dr. Ahmed became and ophthalmologist, there were only two treatment options for glaucoma patients: administer 10 eye drops daily for life or undergo invasive surgery that had high complication rates and a long recovery time. Neither was a great choice.
With the field ripe for innovation, Dr. Ahmed committed his career to revolutionizing the treatment of glaucoma. He created a new class of care he called interventional glaucoma. It bridged the gap between medication drops and surgery and focused on treatment-related quality of life issues and better patient outcomes.
Micro-invasive devices are the foundation of interventional glaucoma, and Dr. Ahmed has been central to developing and refining this technology. He coined the term micro-invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS), and the approach has transformed glaucoma therapy. MIGS has a superior safety profile to traditional surgery and enables physicians to treat patients earlier in the disease process.
Yet, Dr. Ahmed wants to do better for his patients. Too many people continue to lose vision or go blind after early intervention, and an urgent need for better therapies remains.
—Dr. Ike Ahmed
