This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Speaker urges contact lens industry to promote market together
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
SAN DIEGO – “We are at the point of what portends to be the golden year of contact lenses,” Randall Fuerst, OD, told attendees of the American Optometric Association Contact Lens and Cornea Section luncheon.
Fuerst, outgoing chair of the section, delivered the “State of the Industry” address here at Optometry’s Meeting.
“The technological innovation, the whole confluence of events, what we know, the new polymers,” he continued. “There are a lot of new opportunities. Every company has introduced some novel new products that have helped patients improve vision. Patient comfort with contact lenses has continued to rise over the last number of years.”
Randall Fuerst
Today, the contact lens market is flat, Fuerst said. There are about 40 million U.S. wearers, up from 34 to 36 in 2006.
“A number of studies talk about the high rate of dropouts,” he said. “We’ve talked about it for 20 years, and it’s time we address this. It’s continued to bedevil our industry.
“With presbyopia and an aging population and myopia progression, we see an ever-greater need for vision correction, and the utilization of contact lenses continues to decrease,” Fuerst said.
Some growth is beginning to occur in the 18- to 34-year-old group as well as the 45- to 54-year-old group, with multifocal modalities.
“Study after study points to the fact that comfort is a huge issue in terms of contact lens dropout,” Fuerst said.
“When you put a contact lens on the eye, you get an upregulation of cytokines and mediators,” he said. “How do we address that and increase the wearability of contact lenses? The technology is there.”
Silicone hydrogels continue to dominate the marketplace, but the fastest growing category is daily disposables, followed by multifocals, Fuerst said.
The percentage of patients who purchase contacts online is still small, but they do it because convenience and price, they say.
“Patients have biases that you’re too expensive and inconvenient,” Fuerst said. “You have to address this.”
Independent practitioners control 40% of the market share, he added.
Fuerst encouraged the industry to join and create a campaign similar to the “Got milk” and Florida orange juice efforts.
“The world is flat,” he said. “Contact lens penetration is 1% in countries with no optometrists. How do we promote growth around the world?”