Every morning, millions of people pat the nightstand, hunting for their reading glasses before they can even check a message on their phone. Now a new prescription eye drop aims to change that daily ritual for at least part of the day. The U.S. regulator has cleared a treatment that can sharpen near vision for most of a workday with a single dose.
Yuvezzi is a dual-action eye drop for presbyopia, the age-related loss of near focusing that usually starts in the mid-forties. Developed by Tenpoint Therapeutics and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, it is the first combination therapy in this new class of “pupil modulating” drops. Early data suggest it can improve close up vision within about thirty minutes and keep that benefit for up to eight to ten hours in many patients.
What presbyopia is and why near vision fades
Presbyopia happens when the eye’s natural lens becomes stiffer with age and can no longer change shape easily to focus on nearby objects. Instead of smoothly shifting from your laptop screen to a food label, the image at close range looks blurry and you instinctively push it farther away. Eye health agencies describe it as a universal part of aging rather than a disease.
Researchers and global health bodies estimate that around two billion people worldwide already live with presbyopia, and that number is expected to grow sharply as populations age. That means more people struggling with menus in dim restaurants, small print on medicine boxes, or the fine print in a digital contract.
How Yuvezzi works inside the eye
Yuvezzi combines two well-known medicines, carbachol and brimonidine tartrate, in a single preservative-free solution. Carbachol makes the pupil smaller, which creates what doctors call a pinhole effect that increases depth of focus. It is similar to narrowing the aperture on a camera so that both the foreground and the background look sharper.
Brimonidine helps keep the pupil from widening again too quickly and is thought to reduce some of the muscle spasm and redness that older miotic drops could cause. Together, the two drugs are designed to deliver clearer near vision while preserving distance vision and comfort through most of the day. According to trial summaries and company information, patients use a single drop in each eye once daily.
What the clinical trials showed
The FDA decision rests on two phase 3 studies known as BRIO I and BRIO II, which together enrolled more than eight hundred adults with presbyopia. BRIO I compared the combination against each ingredient alone, while BRIO II tested Yuvezzi against a placebo vehicle and followed patients for up to twelve months. In total, safety was monitored over more than 72,000 treatment days without treatment-related serious adverse events.
In BRIO II, a significant share of participants gained at least three lines on a standard near vision chart under low-light conditions without losing distance clarity. Put in everyday terms, many people could read smaller print than before while still seeing road signs at their usual level.
The improvement started around thirty minutes after instilling the drops and remained statistically strong for at least eight hours, while pupil constriction itself was observed out to ten hours in some measurements.
The most common side effects included temporary eye pain when the drop was applied, brief visual disturbance, mild irritation, and headache. An important detail for many users is eye redness, since nobody wants to trade reading glasses for a bloodshot look at work. In BRIO II, only about 2.8% of people on Yuvezzi had noticeable redness compared with 10.7% on carbachol alone, suggesting that the dual formula is easier on the eye surface.
Henric Bjarke, chief executive at Tenpoint, called the approval “a significant milestone for the millions of people in the U.S. living with presbyopia and its daily frustrations.” Ophthalmologist John Hovanesian from Harvard Eye Associates added that existing options such as glasses, contacts, or surgery often “have fallen short in meeting the real-world needs of people who struggle with close-up tasks.”
How Yuvezzi compares with Vuity and Vizz
Yuvezzi is not the first pharmacologic option for presbyopia. Vuity, based on pilocarpine and marketed by AbbVie, was the first miotic eye drop approved in the United States. Vizz, an aceclidine drop developed by LENZ Therapeutics, followed with once-daily dosing that can also keep near vision clearer for much of the day. Both rely on the same basic idea of shrinking the pupil to improve focus.
Where Yuvezzi differs is in the fixed combination strategy and in a simple one vial schedule. Patients instill one drop in each eye, then are done until the next day, without a second dose or refrigeration requirements noted in the label. Other drops in this class can involve two-step dosing or strict cold storage which complicates use in daily life or travel and may help explain why some eye care specialists are watching Yuvezzi closely.
Cost is still an open question. Similar presbyopia drops such as Vizz currently retail around $70 to $100 per month in the United States, depending on pharmacy and insurance, with one recent report pegging Vizz at about $79 for a four-week supply. Analysts expect Yuvezzi to arrive in a similar price band although official pricing has not yet been published.
Who might benefit most, safety notes, and where it will be available
Specialists say pupil modulating drops tend to work best in people with early or moderate presbyopia who still have reasonably healthy eyes and good distance vision. If you are in your forties or early fifties, see well across the room, yet find yourself holding a menu at arm’s length, you are close to the profile often described as an ideal candidate. People with very advanced presbyopia or other eye conditions may notice less benefit and may still need glasses for many tasks.
Like other miotic therapies, Yuvezzi is not free of risks. The prescribing information warns about temporary dim or dark vision and advises patients to be careful with night driving or any work in low light. There is also a small but known risk of retinal tears with this drug class, so doctors are encouraged to examine the retina before starting treatment and to avoid the drops in patients with active inflammation of the iris.
For now, the drops will be available only in the United States once commercial launch begins, which trade publications expect in the second quarter of 2026. Tenpoint has signed licensing deals in parts of the Asia Pacific region, but there is no firm timeline yet for Europe or Latin America. That means many people will still rely on reading glasses, multifocal lenses, or surgery while regulators and payers weigh this new option.
Yuvezzi will not make reading glasses disappear overnight, and it will not be right for every eye. Yet it adds a practical, reversible tool to a space that until recently offered only hardware like lenses or more invasive procedures.
The official approval and prescribing information have been published on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration website.
