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SOBLEC making strides in contact lens market in Brazil
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The Brazilian Contact Lens Society, SOBLEC, has introduced a program that will place its society’s mark of approval on contact lenses according to SOBLEC president Hamilton Moreira, MD, in an exclusive interview with Ocular Surgery News.
“We have created a brand called Solotica to be sold through SOBLEC. The institution is going to be protected, the ophthalmologist is going to be protected and the patient is going to be protected, because he is now going to come back to the doctor’s office when his supply of disposable lenses runs out,” Dr. Moreira said here during the Pan-American Congress of Ophthalmology.
Contact lens manufacturers “are selling and marketing the lenses only with the Brazilian ophthalmologists who are part of SOBLEC,” he said.
The fact that optical shops are allowed by law to sell contact lenses has long been a point of contention between ophthalmologists and the government. “This is how we are protecting the public from disreputable parts of the commercial area, where many times the health of the eye and the cornea are not the issue and lenses are fitted incorrectly without an examination,” Dr. Moreira said.
Other partnerships in the works for SOBLEC include one with CIBA Vision and its daily lenses. The society plans to work with Alcon on incorporating a SOBLEC-approved statement for the company’s OptiFree Express. In addition, Johnson & Johnson has launched a national media campaign for its Acuvue lenses through another partnership with SOBLEC.
“I’m very proud of the ethical nature of the campaign, which includes a statement to the public saying ‘Make an appointment with your ophthalmologist about obtaining contact lenses’,” Dr. Moreira said. “The ophthalmologists are being protected because the public is being instructed by the company selling the lenses to visit their ophthalmologists where the patient can be properly fitted for the lenses.”
Dr. Moreira notes SOBLEC is not saying that companies “cannot sell their lenses in optical shops. I want the companies to tell their buyers that the device of contact lenses is something that should start with the patient’s ophthalmologist and be controlled by an ophthalmologist.”