Business Fortune
Lentechs is a privately held, clinical-stage ophthalmic medical device company dedicated to enhancing eyesight at every stage of life through innovative design and breakthrough contact lens technology. The company's primary goal is to create a line of soft, suspended contact lenses that are patented and unique in the industry, with the ability to provide superb, glasses-like vision at all distances.
Lentechs was established in 2017 and has its headquarters in Columbus, Ohio.
Lentechs CEO Mr. Robin G. Sears discussed with Business Fortune how the company's next generation of soft, suspended contact lenses, APIOCTM, can assist in addressing the present visual issues facing the presbyopia industry. Here's an excerpt from it.
Lentechs | Synopsis
Inventing New Optics and Contact Lens Designs
For decades now, the "Big 4" contact lens makers have prioritized polymer chemistry as their primary area of innovation in an attempt to increase patient comfort. Although this effort has undoubtedly been beneficial, it has not addressed some fundamental vision-related issues that patients encounter as they age. In fact, by the time a patient reaches 60, less than 5% of them still wear contact lenses, compared to over 50% of vision-corrected patients in their 20s. Nonetheless, patients would rather use contact lenses.
Due to the difficulty of this potential, many businesses choose to focus on surgical or pharmaceutical treatments for presbyopia rather than developing a universally suitable soft contact lens option.
Presbyopia and presbyopia with astigmatism sufferers frequently express dissatisfaction with the contact lens options available today:
- Many patients would want to live a more independent life by completely giving up their corrective glasses, or "readers."
- A patient's eyesight may be somewhat affected by multifocal contact lenses as part of the lens's mechanism of action (MOA) for visual correction. For instance, patients may have excellent near vision while using their multifocal lens, but their mid-range or distance vision may be impaired.
Lentechs is creating a soft, suspended contact lens for the millions of underprivileged individuals who suffer from presbyopia and presbyopia with astigmatism in an effort to address these issues. The company's contact lens allows users to access particular prescription zones required for each visual distance correction by allowing the eye to move freely behind it (up and down), just like it would behind a pair of progressive addition glasses.
"We want to provide a ground-breaking, cutting-edge contact lens design to a market that has historically relied heavily on novel contact lens materials while lacking design innovation. Our proprietary, ground-breaking APIOC brand offers a unique range of soft, suspended contact lenses that provide remarkable, glasses-like vision at all distances.
APIOCTM: Unique Mechanism of Action
Compared to existing soft, multifocal contact lenses, the APIOC design is entirely different. The simultaneous vision correction offered by the devices now on the market may damage vision and make it more difficult for certain individuals to adjust to lenses. Two balancing zones, an optical zone, a patented back surface, and a unique front surface feature that suspends the lens behind the upper eyelid make up APIOC's ground-breaking design, which fits slightly more loosely than typical lenses.
The patient with presbyopia was the primary focus of APIOC's design. Above all, our lens is made to work with the structure of the eye, not against it. Our APIOC lens, in contrast to conventional contact lenses, is suspended behind the upper eyelid, enabling unrestricted eye movement (both up and down) behind the rotationally stable, central contact lens. Through unrestricted eye movement behind the APIOC lens, users can obtain the precise prescription required for every type of visual distance adjustment.
A basic technology that Lentechs licensed from the Ohio State Innovation Foundation in 2017 served as the foundation for our creative APIOC line. Since then, we have worked together with a coalition of top optometrists and ophthalmologists to proudly design APIOC. This idea has been developed in a methodical, step-by-step manner, with thorough testing and input at every turn in the design process.
Future Perspective Road Map
Lentechs focuses on the two billion people globally and the 120 million Americans who suffer from astigmatism and presbyopia. Presbyopia is an age-related disorder in which the crystalline internal lens of the eye gradually becomes less flexible and thicker. Everyone understands that this makes it harder to concentrate on the near and intermediate ranges and is mostly inevitable. In light of this, population growth will continue to draw in customers for many years to come. There is tremendous potential for the category to grow rapidly given the gap between people who now wear contact lenses and those who would like to, especially in light of the encouraging clinical results from APIOC.
In the future, Lentech hopes to provide a platform that takes into account each patient's particular vision needs for the duration of their lives. The first APIOC products available will be APIOC for astigmatism-assisted presbyopia and APIOC for presbyopia. Single vision contact lens solutions will also be available on the upcoming APIOC platform.
"We want to give patients the best possible vision at all distances for the duration of their lives."
Robin G. Sears | President & CEO
For more than 30 years, Robin G. Sears, MBA, has led the way in life science commercial strategy for pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and consumer packaged goods with a medical focus. He is a recognized commercial leader with extensive tenures at Johnson & Johnson, Allergan, and Abbott. He is the CEO of several start-up businesses in the eyecare industry and a member of the Buckeye Executive Network for the Ohio State University Technology Commercialization Office.
Robin has an MBA from the University of Vermont and a BA from Wittenberg University.
