CooperVision announces availability of Biofinity toric multifocal contacts
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ATLANTA – CooperVision’s next iteration of the Biofinity brand, designed for patients with astigmatism and presbyopia, is currently available in a limited release and will come out nationwide in May.
Lee Hall, OD, PhD, lead clinical scientist in research and development at CooperVision, told Primary Care Optometry News here at SECO that the new silicone hydrogel lens, “provides a wide range of parameters with proven technology designed to behave like existing products.”
With the “easy-to-fit familiar design” is hoped that clinicians “can keep existing toric contact lens wearers in lenses and provide an option other than reading spectacles,” he said. “You can hopefully retain existing patients and bring in new ones.”
Biofinity toric multifocals, made from comfilcon A material, are available in sphere powers from +10.00 D to -10.00 D (0.50 steps after +/-6.00 D); with cylinder powers from -0.75 D to -5.75 D (0.50 D steps); an axis of 5 degrees to 180 degrees in 5-degree steps; and add powers of +1.00 D, +1.50 D, +2.00 D and +2.50 D in both the center D and center N lenses, the company said in a press release.
The wide range of parameters allows for more than 200,000 prescription options, Hall said.
“We’re confident you can fit it in a large proportion of patients,” he said.
He also noted, “Near, intermediate and distance vision are all crisp. It has an optimized toric lens geometry with stable back surface optics and evenly distributed optic ballast.”
He noted that the optimized design allowed for the lens thickness to be reduced.
Hall said they have seen a 93% initial fitting success rate for clinicians who use the fitting guide.
Michele Andrews, OD, CooperVision’s senior director of professional and academic affairs, North America, told PCON that no trial lens set is necessary.
Clinicians can use the fitting guide and an app, and a trial lens arrives in 5 to 7 days. If modifications are necessary, it would take a few more weeks for the new lenses to be modified.
“Each one is custom made to order,” she said.
“We are rolling it out first to about 450 doctors to ensure everything runs smoothly, then it will go national in May,” Andrews added.
She also updated PCON on the status of the company’s MiSight 1 day Contact Lenses for myopia management.
Twenty optometrists have been certified to prescribe CooperVision’s Brilliant Future Myopia Management Program with the MiSight lens, she said. Clinicians are required to participate in an in-person workshop and then complete an online competency program. They can then receive a fitting set and starter kits for the doctor and patient, which include information on online tools.
She noted that the MiSight lens is available in -0.50 D to -6.00 D in 0.25-D steps.
CooperVision provides doctors with information on how to discuss the management program with parents.
“Parents are afraid to put their kids in contact lenses,” she said. “The doctors who are now most excited are already doing myopia control in their practices in other ways.” – by Nancy Hemphill, ELS, FAAO
Disclosures: Andrews and Hall are employed by CooperVision.