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CooperVision acquires Paragon Vision Sciences
Soft contact lens manufacturer CooperVision announced Dec. 1 that it acquired Paragon Vision Sciences, maker of orthokeratology and specialty contact lenses and gas permeable materials.
CooperVision said in a press release that the acquisition will include Paragon’s CRT Contact Lenses for overnight treatment of myopia and expand CooperVision’s access to the Chinese myopia management market, which was already penetrated by Paragon.
“Collaborating with Paragon not only provides an opportunity to grow our myopia management presence worldwide, but also deepens and broadens the way in which we help improve the way people see each day,” Andrew Sedgwick, CooperVision executive vice president of strategy and business development, who oversees the company’s specialty business, said in the release.
CooperVision is headquartered in Pleasanton, Calif., and Paragon will continue to operate as an independent, complementary business from its headquarters near Phoenix. Both companies’ customers should continue to work with their current sales representatives, according to the release.
Paragon President Rich Jeffries will continue to oversee the company’s day-to-day operations, according to the release.
“By combining CooperVision’s considerable resources and expertise with Paragon’s technologies, materials and presence in markets such as China, we’ll accelerate the fight against myopia, which is expected to affect half the world’s population by 2050,” Jeffries said.
CooperVision noted that it acquired specialty contact lens manufacturers Soflex and Procornea in 2016 and 2017, respectively, but did not disclose the terms of this acquisition.
Perspective
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The growing, global myopia epidemic presents both great needs and opportunities for companies within the eye care industry. CooperVision has long since had one of the most successful and comprehensive soft contact lens product portfolios but has previously not been a real player in the gas permeable lens, contact lens care, pharmaceutical or surgical realms like their counterparts in the industry have been. Their acquisition of Paragon, a successful and reputable company in its own right, changes that in a significant way. As we have witnessed in other contact lens industry acquisitions, companies can often improve the distribution of and access to specialty products for both practitioners and patients around the world when consolidated. In particular, Paragon’s CRT Contact Lenses for orthokeratology complement CooperVision's MiSight soft contact lenses, which were released outside of the U.S. several years ago and were shown to significantly reduce myopia progression, and this acquisition positions CooperVision as a global myopia control leader in contact lenses.