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Industry panel: Addressing challenges drives contact lens innovation
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LAS VEGAS – Contact lens manufacturers are working to continually identify problems preventing comfortable and effective lens wear, according to a panel of industry experts here at the Global Contact Lens Forum held during Vision Expo West.
Neal White, vice president of research and development and technology integration for SynergEyes, said his company looks for what is wrong.
“Are people as comfortable as they should be?” he said. “What can we do different? How do we get the doctor to push the ‘easy’ button?”
Karen Havenstrite, PhD, co-founder and chief technology officer of Tangible Science, said they go into the clinic and watch for problems. “We define problems,” George L. Grobe III, PhD, vice president of surgical and vision care research and development for Bausch + Lomb, added. “It may be proprioception of the lens. We interpret data differently and look for multiple ways to solve the problem.”
Patients’ wearing habits have changed dramatically through the last 20 years, Steve Diamanti, PhD, senior manager of technical marketing for CooperVision, said.
“People are putting their eyes through a beating with digital devices, extremely long wearing times,” he said. “How can innovation keep up with changing needs?”
Cristina Schnider, OD, MBA, FAAO, director of global professional affairs, vision care, at Johnson & Johnson Vision, said they aim to help optometrists do what they do best. “We’re looking to make a totally new future for eye care,” she said.
Erich Bauman, OD, MBA, FAAO, senior director, project leadership for vision care research and development, Alcon, echoed the other panelists’ sentiments. “We look at the amalgamation of what we try to do to make people’s lives better,” he said. “We look for unmet needs, whether comfort or vision.”
“The biggest single problem we have with contact lenses has to do with the person, not the contact lens,” moderator Scot Morris, OD, FAAO, said. Dryness, meibomian gland dysfunction, improper care and solution choice are issues, he said. “This is our problem, not industry’s,” he said.
The tear film dictates whether a patient sees well out of a contact lens or wears them comfortably, Morris said.
The panelists discussed challenges encountered with clinical trials.
“A lot of people are involved in clinical trials at the end stage where we’re proving how well a product works,” Erich said, “but the clinical heavy lifting takes place very early in the process. Sometimes we have clinical studies with one or two people where we test prototypes.
“I like the concept of a cycle team,” he continued. “Chemist, engineer, lens maker, lens measurer and clinicians. We make a lens, measure it, test it, see what’s wrong, make it, test it – just keep going around that cycle. You have to have that early learning way before an FDA study.”
Schnider said it is challenging to apply FDA clinical trial outcomes to real-life contact lens wear. “Clinical trials are very controlled and regulated,” she said. “You worry about the generalizability of it. The people in the clinicals may not be representative of the world. It’s an artificial situation. Inevitably, there’s no guarantee that the results that happen in that clinical trial will be applicable to each patient.
“We’ll bring you lots of data that’s true and rigorous, but it’s not real world, so that’s a challenge for us,” Schnider continued. “We make them follow our rules, but in your life, they probably don’t do that.” – by Nancy Hemphill, ELS, FAAO
Reference:
Morris S, et al. Global Contact Lens Forum. Presented at: Vision Expo West, Las Vegas. Sept. 13-16, 2017.
Disclosures: Erich Bauman, OD, MBA, FAAO, is senior director, project leadership for vision care research and development, Alcon. Steve Diamanti, PhD, is senior manager of technical marketing for CooperVision. George L. Grobe III, PhD, is vice president of surgical and vision care research and development for Bausch + Lomb. Karen Havenstrite, PhD, is co-founder and chief technology officer of Tangible Science. Scot Morris, OD, FAAO, owns Morris Education & Consulting Services. Cristina Schnider, OD, MBA, FAAO, is director of global professional affairs at Johnson & Johnson Vision. Neal White, is vice president of research and development and technology integration for SynergEyes.