Contact lenses in their DNA

A visit to Hecht Contactlinsen

Hecht Contactlinsen GmbH is based in Au near Freiburg, Germany, and is one of the leading manufacturers of customized contact lenses. Founded in 1978, the company specializes in individual solutions for contact lenses and offers high-quality RGPs as well as soft contact lenses. In addition, several subsidiaries have been added over the years. The two Managing Directors Stefan Muckenhirn and Frank Widmer as well as Mario Rehnert, (Marketing and Professional Service), invited GlobalCONTACT on a company tour.

We don’t start our visit directly in Au at the company headquarters: first we go to the city center of Freiburg. In order to understand the company’s history, we take a look back at its beginnings. And these lie at Optik Nosch in Freiburg in the early 1970s. Hecht founder Dieter Muckenhirn had not only worked here as an optician and optometrist, he was also given the opportunity to concentrate fully on contact lenses, which were still considered rather exotic at the time. He was asked to set up a contact lens department for the specialist store.

Nosch Contactlinsen

At that time, Optik Nosch was one of Zeiss’ biggest customers in terms of spectacle lens sales. The task of setting up a contact lens division meant nothing less than establishing a similarly flourishing business. The bar was therefore set high and Rolf Nosch was not only Dieter Muckenhirn’s employer, but also his mentor to ensure that he succeeded. He handed him the reins and “let him do it”.

Today, the contact lens institute Nosch Contactlinsen is completely independent of the optician’s store, but is located in the immediate vicinity on the first floor above a bank branch in the heart of Freiburg, the gateway to the Black Forest. The fully utilized institute is now part of the Hecht Group and offers four fitting rooms with state-of-the-art technology for around ten employees on an area of 240 m². Here, patients are offered every contact lens solution – from daily disposables, RGP corneal lenses to special fittings after corneal injuries, scleral lenses or Ortho-K.

Dieter Muckenhirn’s son and managing director at Hecht, Stefan Muckenhirn, remembers: “Although my father only became interested in contact lenses very late in life, his interest, which had developed particularly during his time at the technical college in Munich, was very strong.”

The first aspheric contact lens

During this time, he met Karl-Heinz Wilms, who worked for Rodenstock, a renowned German ophthalmic lens manufacturer, and developed geometries for spectacle lenses. The two shared a friendship and a common interest in optical surfaces. 

Frank Widmer, also managing director at Hecht Contactlinsen, adds: “But beyond that, it was always important to him to find out how a contact lens could be optimally fitted. He carried out various test series with the contact lenses available at the time. But the way he had imagined improving the contact lens fit was never implemented.”

Meanwhile, Nosch’s confidence in him was so great that they even wanted to buy him his own lathe, so that he could make his own contact lenses. However, he quickly realized that it takes more than a machine to make a good lens. He eventually became acquainted with Günter Hecht, who had a small manufacturing in the basement of his house in Untereisesheim. Three employees made contact lenses here. The name “Hecht Contactlinsen” comes from this historical context. “Although it was a very small company, it was already well-known in the industry,” recalls Stefan Muckenhirn.

“In the days when contact lenses had one or two axes it was only possible to make statements about the fitting behavior of contact lenses using fluorescein. The contact lens was then processed empirically. Here it was mainly experience, but not a systematic approach, to do justice to the cornea, which becomes increasingly flatter towards the edge,” says Frank Widmer.

Karl-Heinz Wilms had also been able to prove through a series of measurements that the cornea tends to be spherical in the center and flattens out towards the edge – and is therefore an asphere. This finding was the basis for designing a contact lens with just such a profile. 

The people in charge at Bausch + Lomb heard about it and were very interested in this new design, but “for a US company it was extremely important to have a patent,” says Stefan Muckenhirn, and that’s exactly what they then worked hard on. 

A central component was to describe the surfaces mathematically. A good friend of Dieter Muckenhirn was a mathematician who developed a set of formulas that ultimately formed the basis for the patent. At that time, however, B+L did not have the confidence to evaluate the functionality itself. Brien Holden from Australia (now the Brien Holden Vision Institute) was therefore commissioned to conduct a study to examine the properties of the contact lens. The results were very good and this contact developed into a friendship between Dieter Muckenhirn and Brien Holden that lasted for decades.

Kick-off for a successful future

The Ascon contact lens came onto the market in the early 1980s and was the first reproducible aspheric rigid contact lens. It marked a turning point in the company’s history. The company’s success took off with it. It was even available in Japan. Profits always flowed back into the company and investments were made in machinery, process development, employees and new product ideas.

Over the course of time, there have always been interesting projects or inquiries. For example, the company was asked whether it would also manufacture IOLs. However, what was once realized as a side project were contact lenses for racehorses from Saudi Arabia or contact lenses for falcons. Small lenses were also produced for chicks and chickens in the early 1990s for leather goggles sewn by Dr. Frank Scheffel’s team, which used these lenses as part of myopia research. Optics for endoscopes were also produced, as well as lenses for a study on surface wetting behavior by the Fraunhofer Institute.

But these were sideshows. A common thread runs through the corporate culture: innovative strength for new products, quality, the transfer of knowledge to opticians and optometrists, services, and a focus on the company’s own processes and those of its customers. Hecht Contactlinsen is very close to practice, not least because of the two contact lens practices. 

The company’s development history can also be clearly seen in the various building complexes, which comprise a total of four construction phases since 1981. 

The latest and most modern part was built in 2014 and houses the reception, dispatch, the managing directors’ offices, meeting rooms and a contact lens fitting room. The other, older parts of the building house production, which is divided into several different production lines. Here, the machines run in two shifts. Each line is tailored to the manufacture of specific products. The four parts of the building are connected to each other and create coordinated production routes.

And today?

The company currently employs around 112 people and is primarily aimed at specialists who require individual and precise contact lenses for their clientele. Hecht Contactlinsen places great importance on the quality of its products, excellent service, knowledge transfer and innovation. 

The headquarters in Au is the center of production and development work, while other subsidiaries in Switzerland, Spain and Germany strengthen the company’s presence in Europe. 

Speaking of knowledge transfer: the Freiburg Contact Lens Forum, which takes place around every three years and is organized by Hecht, is a further education conference for professionals from the fields of optics and optometry. It offers participants up-to-date insights into the industry, new technologies and practical solutions for everyday challenges.

In the fall of 2024, a stroke of fate came for the Muckenhirn family and for Hecht. Dieter Muckenhirn passed away at the age of 81. For some time before this, there had been ideas about how the company would continue to flourish and what a succession might look like. After extensive research and several meetings, the shareholders decided to restructure the company. 

At the end of 2024, Hecht was taken over by the private equity firm Novum Capital, which acquired a majority stake. This once again marked a turning point in the company’s history. Novum Capital has successfully implemented similar succession plans and growth strategies for companies in the past. The focus is on improving the profitability and market position of the portfolio companies and supporting companies in their growth and innovative strength through business expertise and financial support. 

For Hecht, this partnership primarily means an improved capital base and access to a network of experts. Despite the change, Stefan Muckenhirn will remain active in the company as managing director and minority shareholder and Frank Widmer will also remain on the management board, while Bernhard Steiert, a former co-partner, will retire from active management but will continue to act in an advisory capacity. With this bold step, the company has planned for the future with foresight and the manufacturer’s course is clearly set for success.