Australia’s largest custom contact lens manufacturer and only manufacturer of disposable lenses, Gelflex, has appointed Ophthalmic Instrument Company (OIC) to formally begin marketing and distributing its products in New Zealand.

The company will officially launch its presence at the Cornea & Contact Lens Society NZ conference at the beginning of March but has been supplying speciality lenses to a number of Kiwi eye care practitioners for some time. “New Zealand practitioners are very good rigid gas permeable lens (RGP) fitters because you have a lot of keratoconus, so they are more used to fitting RGPs, which is a speciality area for us. So there’s quite a number that already buy from us and they’ve been asking us for years, ‘when are you going to come here’ and now we’ve got the opportunity to do that,” said Graham Lehman, Gelflex’s specialty lens division manager.

Gelflex is introducing its full range of custom-made and disposable lenses into New Zealand, including its ortho-k range and new Zenlens. “Zenlens is unique as it incorporates a ‘smart curve’ which allows the practitioner to adjust only one part of the lens whilst not affecting the rest of the fit. All our designs are manufactured to exceed all international standards and are flexible; parameters can be altered to within the micron.”

The company will also unveil two new speciality designs later this year. Both will be supported by Gelflex’s new bespoke training hub, which offers practitioners 24/7 access to online contact training, said Lehman. “It’s not a sales site, it’s about ‘this is how you fit it’, ‘this is what you look for’. There’s a lot of resources there. It’s free, private and individual.”

Initially Gelflex will be focused on its speciality and custom-made CL business in New Zealand but is also keen to promote its disposable lenses. These are widely used and sought after in the US, South East Asia, the Middle East and Europe, where the Australian-made tag is a drawcard, said Lehman, but to date have made little impact in Australia. “It’s bizarre. We have five production lines in Perth producing disposable lenses seven days a week, 24 hours a day and we’re putting on another line because we can’t produce enough and it’s all going abroad.”

Back to the local market, Lehman said being an Australian company, Gelflex is big enough to make a financial difference to support the industry, but small enough to personalise it for each practice. “We’re just about good business, good product and good support.”