In Contact - July 2008
At Last
Something I've desired and predicted since the turn of the century ? a one day silicone hydrogel ? was the surprise highlight of the recent BCLA in Birmingham.
Johnson and Johnson stole the show with a world first launch of 1 Day Acuvue TruEye.
TruEye has been so secret that there's not much detail available yet, apart from that supplied at the launch and well covered by Carla Mack in the CL Today newsletter. Essentially It's a low modulus si-hy lens in standard 1 Day Acuvue 8.5/14.2 parameters with proven Hyrdraclear PVP based technology.
It's got to be a winner, that together with yet to be launched competitor products will change the face of the contact lens market. I reckon we can expect it in NZ in early 2009.
As discussed in my keynote address at the BCLA, ?Contact Lenses: The State of the Art?, contact lens development is taking place at an ever accelerating pace.
It took around four hundred years for da Vinci?s contact lens visions to become reality, in the late 1800s. Over fifty years later PMMA lenses appeared, followed twenty five years later by soft and then RGP lenses. The first disposables appeared twenty years ago with the first one day lenses appearing seven years later in 1995. A mere four years later the first silicone hydrogels arrived and now at last the first si-hy daily lens. For those of you with an interest in such things It's worth reading respected London CL expert and historian Andrew Gasson?s recent article ?From bottles to blisters? on the opticianonline website
It was as recently as last month?s In Contact that I mentioned we could expect this development ?within six months? and here we are with TruEye launched ahead of expectations. I suspect that this landmark event will help to further cement J&J?s undisputed number one slot in the contact lens business. With over $US2 billion in contact lens revenue in 2007, they continue to experience significant growth. Check out this detailed business report from J&J to get a better understanding of the magnitude of the contact lens business with some interesting information on market share and so on. Some of these numbers are understandably similar to those that I heard during my visit to CooperVision?s UK facilities near Southampton at the conclusion of the BCLA.
State of the Art
I've always had a fascination with technical precision and manufacture. I therefore jumped at the chance when CooperVision invited me to join them on a tour of their latest state of the art manufacturing and distribution facilities in and around Southampton. Check out their business report.
In NZ we're used to contact lens manufacturers that fit into a small house and distribution facilities that take up not much more space. Thus it was mega-impressive to see their conveyor and robotic driven labelling, storage and picking systems covering what would appear to be an area the size of a couple of rugby fields. They tell me It's an ever evolving system and likely to be way more impressive if I am fortunate to visit them in a years time.
If I thought the distribution systems were impressive then the best was yet to come. After a lovely cruise for dinner up the historical Beaulieu River, we visited Cooper?s lens manufacturing facilities for hydrogels and silicone hydrogels, the following day. The dry cast moulding for hydrogels was itself very impressive with little human intervention and the ability to consistently manufacture tens of millions of lenses per year. The initial mould manufacture takes mere seconds at the start and some very clever technology along the way ensures precise polymer injection and mould separation. Error detection imaging and LASER driven measurement ensures amazing accuracy throughout. Lens hydration and curing completes the process with bar-coded foil packs, ready for labelling for different markets.
The manufacture of silicone hydrogel disposables poses a number of significant hurdles for lens manufacturers and one can see that the silicone production lines are a significant advancement at almost every step of the way. Volume manufacture of low cost silicone hydrogels adds to the challenge. From unique moulds to significantly more advanced robotic process control, one can see that almost every step has been ramped up to meet the challenges. Curing, mould separation and hydration are all new as is the polymer injection stage.
I was fortunate to be one of only a handful of practitioners and academics that were shown this sensitive technology. We were blown away by the level of technological sophistication. I half expected to see a Martian jump out around every corner yet all we saw were a handful of understandably proud CooperVision employees in sterile garb.
My thanks to Karl Aberdeen and his team for the invite, the tour and their kind hospitality. It's nice to see where some of the lenses we use come from and heartening to see the high standards applied to their manufacture.
Very impressive.
BCLA
For those of you yet to make it to a BCLA conference, I can certainly recommend attending. With over a thousand delegates and many more involved with the superb AV, exhibition and organisation, the meeting is regarded by many as the number one contact lens conference on the planet. Around eighty dual-track academic and clinical presentations - coupled with as many additional workshops, posters and sponsors presentations taking place simultaneously - one is spoilt for choice. There was barely a spare moment to be had from early morning breakfast sessions right through to the very impressive evening entertainment that found many at the pub until the wee hours.
The balance between academic, clinical and industry presentations was good. RGPs were well covered. Keratoconus and orthokeratology had a greater share of the programme than expected. In depth coverage was also given to inflammation, solutions, multifocals and much more including some esoteric subjects.
I was impressed by the mix of presentation lengths, that ranged from rapid fire six minute talks to the more common fifteen, twenty and thirty minute presentations, as well as the occasional forty minute and one hour specialised lectures.
An excellent balance.
Lyndon Jones, well know to NZ CCLS conference delegates wowed the crowds at the Saturday Night Fever themed BCLA gala dinner. Together with his fellow band members from Waterloo University they provided world class musical entertainment. The fact that the dance floor was packed from the very first notes, right until the last at 2AM, is testament to how good they were.
A great ?night? which I finally bowed out of at 4.30AM.
Some, I am told, went straight from the pub to early morning lectures. There were a few red eyes at the continuous wear session although those that slept in their new TruEye trial lenses [against recommended use I might add] had good things to say about their closed eye performance, albeit very limited extended wear.
My sincere thanks to programme organiser Jonathan Walker for the invitation and to President Sarah Janikoun, IPP Nick Atkins, as well as Vivien Freeman and James Barrett for their kind hospitality and organisational skills. Of course there are many others to thank including the excellent AV team - who helped ensure all our talks went off smoothly - and my session chair and co-presenter, Christopher Kerr. I rekindled many old friendships with colleagues from all over the world and met many more remarkable people including academics, clinicians and industry people.
We all had a great time and learnt a lot.
that's what It's all about.
Correction
An astute reader pointed out that I was guilty of apostrophe abuse in my last column. I have to admit I was flat out getting my BCLA presentations ready and with two columns to write and a few other things - with barely 12 hours till I caught the long haul to London - it thus slipped through. I apologise for the oversight.
The offending item was; ?Patient?s come first? and our reader?s response was ?Eeeeeeeek!?
Indeed.
As it pertained to an article on optometric board registration issues, I guess that would be one thing they could certainly strike one off for!
So the correct statement would be ?Patients come first?.
that's a lot safer if one wants to keep one?s licence to practise!
Well I think I got that crop of apostrophes right.
For more information or any comments email Alan at incontact@optom.co.nz.