When you take eye drops, blinking and your natural tears can mean that as little as 1 percent of the drug actually goes into your eye.

But researchers at Children's Hospital in Boston have developed a new way to deliver drugs to the eye.

Dr. Daniel Kohane and a team say a contact lens can be used to give a constant amount of a drug directly to the eye.

A news release said the breakthrough is that the lenses release the dose steadily, rather than as a quick burst. They can provide treatment such as an antibiotic for up to 100 days, although the Food and Drug Administration has only approved contact lenses that last 30 days.

The substances used to create the two-layer lens has already been approved by the government.

The researchers said they could also imagine using the system to treat glaucoma or dry-eye.

The prototype was described in the July issue of Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science.