GlobalCONTACT
ISSUE 02/2024

Overview

Report: Meetings of ECOO and EAOO in Helsinki // 50th EFCLIN Congress // Company Profile: Valley Contax // Fitting Background: Dropouts // Myths: children and contact lenses // Interview: Roland Fromme

NEWS

Optometry Giving Sight names new Executive Director

Optometry Giving Sight names new Executive Director

Optometry Giving Sight (OGS) has named Donna J. Mikulecky, CPA, as the organization’s executive director. She replaces retiring executive director Lois Schoenbrun, FAAO, who has served in the role since April 2022. Mikulecky has more than 25 years of experience leading health care organizations, most recently as chief operating officer of Vision Source. Before taking…

Wöhlk Contactlinsen receives MDR certificate

Wöhlk Contactlinsen receives MDR certificate

It’s done and a real milestone in the 77-year history of the northern German contact lens manufacturer: Wöhlk Contactlinsen GmbH has received the MDR certificate. The European Medical Device Regulation (MDR; Regulation 2017/745) has been in force since May 2021, replacing the two previous European medical device directives MDD and AIMDD. The certification was a…

Bausch + Lomb reports growth

Bausch + Lomb reports growth

Bausch + Lomb announced yesterday that revenue in the third quarter of 2024 grew 19 percent to $1.196 billion compared with $1.007 billion in the third quarter of 2023, an increase of $189 million. Excluding the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange of $5 million, revenue increased by approximately 19 percent on a constant currency basis…

Cathleen McCabe joins Bausch + Lomb

Cathleen McCabe joins Bausch + Lomb

Bausch + Lomb Corporation has announced the addition of Cathleen McCabe, MD, as strategic medical advisor. In this new consultancy role, she will provide input into the expansion of Bausch + Lomb’s product portfolio and lend her expertise to the research and development team as it reloads the company’s pipeline, Bausch + Lomb said. Dr….

New VR education program

New VR education program

The American Academy of Ophthalmology, in partnership with FundamentalVR, a leader in immersive surgical training, has announced the launch of the Academy’s VR Education program, an initiative that harnesses the power of virtual reality (VR) to transform ophthalmic education and surgical training. Supported by a $5 million grant from the Knights Templar Eye Foundation, the…


ARTICLES

LenzBox: Innovative contact lens cleaning

LenzBox: Innovative contact lens cleaning

Efficient contact lens care for soft contact lenses is particularly important for long-term and safe contact lens wear. At the last Opti Munich 2024, a start-up presented a completely new system that not only simplifies contact lens care, but also manages the amount of care product used sustainably.

Chat GPT and other AI – a new language for the industry

Chat GPT and other AI – a new language for the industry

An interview with CSEM machine learning expert Philipp Schmid ChatGPT and other AIs have recently caused a furor in virtually all professions where people write, program or design. How much dust are these supposedly general-purpose AIs stirring up in the industry? The general-purpose AIs are kicking up an enormous amount of dust. But unlike 2016,…

Contact Lenses: Enhancing the comfort

Contact Lenses: Enhancing the comfort

The importance of contact lens characterization  Why do wearers consider “soft” contact lenses (CLs) more comfortable than the “rigid” gas permeable (RGP) alternative? Thus, what does “comfort” mean from a scientific point of view? In this short article, we aim to emphasize the significance of meticulously characterizing and monitoring the physical parameters of CL materials…

State of the Art(ificial): Part 2

State of the Art(ificial): Part 2

Understanding Soft Lens Design & Fitting Celebrating 50 years of EFCLIN, urges us to look back – but also gives us a good opportunity to look forward. Artificial intelligence (AI) is getting a lot of attention lately, almost to the point of becoming a fashion statement: everybody is into artificial intelligence, it seems. Several recent…

A historic therapeutic contact lens

A historic therapeutic contact lens

Series on the Roth Collection Contact lenses are not only a valuable visual aid, they were also used soon after their invention as a bandage and, following the successful synthesis of water-retaining plastics, as a drug carrier on the eye. Their ability to compensate for irregular corneal astigmatism was recognized as early as the first…

Erik Larson: The Problem ­Solver

Erik Larson: The Problem ­Solver

A visit to Larsen Equipment Design Together with his son Andrew, Erik Larsen shoulders a steel bar and carries it into his workshop. It smells of oil and metal here. A whole battalion of machinery is installed here. Large, old, new and small. And the really big ones, which easily have a footprint of 6…



LETTER

Employee, where are you?

Employee, where are you?

Are you having trouble finding employees? And to keep them? There’s a specter haunting the EU – and unfortunately, it’s very real: The shortage of skilled workers. And it’s particularly noticeable in some EU countries. That’s because demographic change is in full swing here – and often more advanced than in other regions of the world.