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Underlying every successful new product, Winterton says, are fundamental ocular science contributions from the giants in the field, as well as dozens of research “failures” that remain in obscurity but provide key knowledge.Bausch & Lomb had been working on silicone lenses since the mid-1970s, with many lessons learned that paved the way for its 1999 introduction of the PureVision (balafilcon A) SiHy lens. The company built up a cadre of chemists to work on silicone lenses, including Kai Su, Ph.D. (who later became an executive at CIBA Vision), Jay Kunzler, Ph.D.; Yu-Chin Lai, Ph.D.; Ron Bambury, Ph.D.; and David Seele, Ph.D. The latter two would eventually invent the balafilcon formulation. Contact lens R&D Director Dominic Ruscio, Ph.D., who helped refine the original Soflens many years before, had the idea to use a plasma surface treatment to make the lens more wettable. It was the last piece of the puzzle the engineers needed.CIBA Vision’s SiHy lenses also had surface modifications to make them more comfortable in the eye. Other manufacturers that came to market a bit later took different approaches. For example, Vistakon’s18 | Acuvue Advance (galyfilcon A), which was introduced in 2003, has an embedded wetting agent in the lens itself. We are already seeing the second generation of silicone hydrogel lenses, including O2Optix (lotrafilcon 1986Drs. Bennett and Grohe author the important textbook,Rigid Gas Permeable Contact Lenses.B, CIBA Vision), Acuvue Oasys (senofilcon A, Vistakon), and Biofinity (comfilcon A, CooperVision), with other new SiHy lenses soon to be released.According to Health Products Research data, SiHy lenses overtook hydrogel lenses for the first time in the first quarter of 2007, with 51% of all new spherical fits and re-fits going to SiHy lenses. Toric silicone hydrogels entered the market a little later, but they have already gone from just 13% of the market in 2005 to 40% now. And the first SiHy mutlifocal lens has captured 20% of the presbyopic soft lens market in its first year.In the final installment in this series on contact lens pioneers, Review of Optometry will look at the people who built the first contact lens practices, leaders in the contact lens field today and the rising stars who are likely to be its innovators in the years to come.1. Sulaiman S, Back A, Sweeney DF, et al. IACLE Database 1999, IACLE Sydney, Australia.2. Fatt I. Oxygen Transmission. In: OH Dabezies (ed), Contact Lenses-The CLAO Guide to Basic Science and Clinical Practice (2nd ed). Boston: Little, Brown, 1989:10.1.3. Holden BA, Mertz GW, McNally JJ. Corneal swelling response to contact lenses worn under extended wear conditions. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 1983;24:218-26.4. Holden BA, Mertz GW. Critical oxygen levels to avoid corneal edema for daily and extended wear contact lenses.
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