Updated September 2023
Ivizia is a modified version of Thealoz Duo, a very popular European product made by Thea Pharmaceuticals. Since their launch in the US in 2023, Ivizia eye drops have become quite popular.
I consider this drop a "high quality lightweight player", if that makes sense. Good ingredients. Not viscous, so they're great for mainstream use by mild-to-moderate folks. People who have severe dry eye but do not tolerate thicker drops will probably like this as it seems to be non-irritating for most of us. But for those who need something thick and longer lasting, this probably won't be what they reach for first.
Personally, I use both the regular drop periodically and the thicker gel first thing in the morning.
Things to like about it
1. Preservative-free drops brand
Ivizia brand drops are all preservative-free. I really appreciate this feature. When a brand is PF, you don't have to stop and think, you don't have to hunt and label-read quite as carefully. Most major US brands, by contrast, have both preserved and unpreserved versions of the very same product. That might be fine for people who are "preservative-savvy" - they know how to tell them apart easily. But it puts many people at risk of preservative exposure without knowing anything about the issue.
2. Excellent MDPF bottle
What is an MDPF bottle? "Multi-dose preservative-free". MDPF bottles allow us to have the benefits of preservative-free eye drops in the convenience of a bottle.
In Europe MDPF bottles of various sorts have been standard for years now. The US market has been slow to adjust to this. Many people seem to prefer the single-use twist-off vials. But honestly, we need to get used to them, because MDPF bottles are the future of eyedrops in general.
Anyway, as MDPF bottles go, I consider Ivizia's the best thus far. See picture below. The one on the RIGHT is one of the most common in the US. There are others similar to that with a blue thing in the middle of the top rather than white - lids are slightly different but the bottle itself is mostly the same.
The one on the LEFT is Ivizia. I felt it does a better job of giving you an actual unit dose when you squeeze, rather than "feast or famine", where you sometimes end up with quite a lot coming out. That seems to be particularly a problem with drops that have lipids, like Systane Complete (at least in my personal experience).
3. Ingredients
POVIDONE: The only reason povidone is in this product is because the FDA will not let companies list sodium hyaluronate as an active ingredient, so European companies who are bringing their HA drops to the US are having to reformulate them and add something else. Most HA drops in the US currently have glycerin, with the exception of Systane Hydration, which has the usual Systane suspects (polyethylene glycol and propylene glycol). So using povidone as the active is a new thing in the HA drop world. Povidone tends to be thought of as rather 'old school' for a lubricant drop. Personally, though, I've always been a fan.
SODIUM HYALURONATE: As you know if you've read anything I've written about eye drops, I'm a big sodium hyaluronate (HA) fan. However, not all HA is equal. The higher the molecular weight, the better - and the more expensive. Very few HA drops have high molecular weight HA (like, currently, only Oasis and Optase brands, as far as I know). We think - though we don't know for a fact - that Ivizia does not have high molecular weight HA, which might make it less useful than it could be for people with severe symptoms. Personally, I think that's a perfectly fair tradeoff for getting this product on the US market at all *AND* getting it on the market cheap! Considering the combination of ingredients and the terrific bottle, I think of this product as a great deal, and I love the fact that it has two sizes.
TREHALOSE: I don't have the technical knowledge to explain why this is 'good stuff', but there's definitely a reason why it's been creeping into more and more US drops. This is a key feature of Thealoz Duo (3%, in fact, though I don't know how much of it is in Ivizia).