Exec Chat: Alcon Seeks Vision ‘Utopia’ For Cataract Surgery Patients

Since it spun-off from Alcon has tried to transform the intraocular lens market with new technologies that can correct a patient’s vision while also treating cataracts.Cataracts are injuries to the lens of the eye that causes it to become cloudy or opaque. Alcon is the market leader in intraocular lenses – artificial lenses implanted surgically to replace a cataractous lens. About 10 million cataract surgeries are performed each year and Alcon expects that number to grow as the population ages.The company markets AcrySof IQ PanOptix, the first and only trifocal lens available in the US. The US Food and Drug Administration approved it 2019 to replace a cataractous lenses and mitigate presbyopia by providing improved intermediate and near visual acuity. AcrySof IQ PanOptix is designed with Alcon’s proprietary Enlighten technology to provide three focal points, including a 60 cm focal point, the typical distance people sit from their computers. By comparison, most competing IOLs are designed with an 80 cm intermediate vision point, according to Alcon.In early 2021, Alcon launched Vivity as the US market’s first and only non-diffractive, extended depth-of-focus intraocular lens. Vivity features Alcon’s non-diffractive X-Wave technology to stretch and shift light without splitting it, so it can provide the same quality of distance vision as a monofocal lens while also providing intermediate and near focal points.The company also recently announced plans to return to the minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) market by acquiring Ivantis for $475m. Ivantis markets Hydrus Microstent, a MIGS device that reduces intraocular pressure for open-angle glaucoma patients in connection with cataract surgery. Alcon previously marketed the CyPass MIGS device but pulled it from the market in late 2018 after long-term studies showed evidence that CyPass caused significant endothelial cell-loss. (Also see "Alcon Sees Big Opportunity In Glaucoma Surgery; Buys Ivantis For $475M" - Medtech Insight, 8 November, 2021.)Medtech Insight talked to Jeannette Bankes, the president and general manager of Alcon’s global surgical franchise to understand the problems her division is trying to splve and how Alcon can improve upon traditional monofocal intraocular lenses.