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Adlens plans June launch for variable focusing spectacles
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NEW YORK – Adlens announced it will launch AdlensFocuss, its adjustable focus lens for presbyopes, in June.
Adlens senior vice president David Eichelberger reported at a press conference held during Vision Expo East that the company’s goal for 2015 is to “hand-select 150 innovative practices to help bring the product to fruition.”
He said practices are being signed up at Vision Expo, training will begin in May, and the product will begin shipping in June.
Optometrist Graeme E. MacKenzie, DPhil, Adlens director of regulatory and industry affairs, explained to Primary Care Optometry News that each side of the Focuss spectacle frame contains a hidden dial. The front lens is customized with the patient’s distance prescription and the adjustable element providing the add, which is a stock lens, is in the back, he said.
Fulfilling the company’s tagline of “precision vision on demand,” patients can adjust their near vision with the dials on each side of the frame.
MacKenzie noted that patients go through the normal refracting process to collect sphere, cylinder and axis, and this data is input for the lab. The specific add, from 0.75 D to 2.5 D, is also included, as well as the PD, “essentially, like a single vision lens,” he said.
The prescription goes through the Adlens Boston office, then to the production facility in Oxford, U.K., he said. It takes between 1 and 6 days for the front lens to be fabricated, “then that lens is married with the adjustable element,” MacKenzie explained.
He said at the press conference that patients will use most of the lens for viewing up close and far away vs. just certain zones of the lens.
“Intermediate vision is a bit of a revelation,” MacKenzie said at the conference. “Focuss can be used for computers and smartphones.”
Eichelberger said at the press conference that the company will first focus on the Northeast, upper Midwest, south central and West Coast regions of the U.S., beginning with 18 frame options for men and women.
“Focuss looks good on an awful lot of people,” he said.
Mara Nieuwsma, director of marketing for Adlens, said MacKenzie will be visiting cities in those regions providing “tech talks,” and an advertising campaign will be directed to patients of the targeted doctors.
Michael C. Ferrara, Adlens chief executive officer and chairman of the board, said orders will ship in 14 days.
“After September, we’ll see if we need additional manufacturing facilities outside of Oxford,” he said at the press conference.
John Bonzio, chief operating officer and general manager of Metro Optics, said at the press conference that all four of his fabricating locations are committed to the Focuss product.
“Focuss is a solution,” he said. “Some people are a failure at wearing progressive-addition lenses.”– by Nancy Hemphill, ELS, FAAO
Disclosures: Eichelberger, Ferrara, MacKenzie and Nieuwsma are employed by Adlens. Bonzio is employed by Metro Optics.