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Thread: So Long to Glasses, Contacts and Laser?

  1. #1
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    So Long to Glasses, Contacts and Laser?

    Pixel Optics is dead. Google glass is dead. Is this the latest investment scam in ophthalmic technology?

    Bionic Lens means perfect vision without ever needing glasses, contacts:B.C. doc



    THE CANADIAN PRESS
    Posted May 18, 2015 4:15 am EDT
    Last Updated May 18, 2015 at 7:00 am EDT


    VANCOUVER – Imagine being able to see three times better than 20/20 vision without wearing glasses or contacts — even at age 100 or more — with the help of bionic lenses implanted in your eyes.

    Dr. Garth Webb, a British Columbia optometrist who invented the Ocumetic Bionic Lens, says patients would have perfect vision and that driving, progressive and contact lenses would become a dim memory as the eye-care industry is transformed.
    Webb says people who have the specialized lenses surgically inserted would never get cataracts because their natural lenses, which decay over time, would have been replaced.

    Perfect eyesight would result “no matter how crummy your eyes are,” Webb says, adding the Bionic Lens would be an option for someone who depends on corrective lenses and is over about age 25, when the eye structures are fully developed.

    “This is vision enhancement that the world has never seen before,” he says, showing a Bionic Lens, which looks like a tiny button.
    “If you can just barely see the clock at 10 feet, when you get the Bionic Lens you can see the clock at 30 feet away,” says Webb, demonstrating how a custom-made lens that folded like a taco in a saline-filled syringe would be placed in an eye, where it would unravel itself within 10 seconds.

    He says the painless procedure, identical to cataract surgery, would take about eight minutes and a patient’s sight would be immediately corrected.
    Webb, who is the CEO of Ocumetics Technology Corp., has spent the last eight years and about $3 million researching and developing the Bionic Lens, getting international patents and securing a biomedical manufacturing facility in Delta, B.C.
    His mission is fuelled by the “obsession” he’s had to free himself and others from corrective lenses since he was in Grade 2, when he was saddled with glasses.
    “My heroes were cowboys, and cowboys just did not wear glasses,” Webb says.
    “At age 45 I had to struggle with reading glasses, which like most people, I found was a great insult. To this day I curse my progressive glasses. I also wear contact lenses, which I also curse just about every day.”
    Webb’s efforts culminated in his recent presentation of the lens to 14 top ophthalmologists in San Diego the day before an annual gathering of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.

    Dr. Vincent DeLuise, an ophthalmologist who teaches at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., and at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, says he arranged several meetings on April 17, when experts in various fields learned about the lens.

    He says the surgeons, from Canada, the United States, Australia and the Dominican Republic, were impressed with what they heard and some will be involved in clinical trials for Webb’s “very clever” invention.
    “There’s a lot of excitement about the Bionic Lens from very experienced surgeons who perhaps had some cynicism about this because they’ve seen things not work in the past. They think that this might actually work and they’re eager enough that they all wish to be on the medical advisory board to help him on his journey,” DeLuise says.
    “I think this device is going to bring us closer to the holy grail of excellent vision at all ranges — distant, intermediate and near.”
    Pending clinical trials on animals and then blind human eyes, the Bionic Lens could be available in Canada and elsewhere in about two years, depending on regulatory processes in various countries, Webb says.

    As for laser surgery, which requires the burning away of healthy corneal tissue and includes potential problems with glare, the need for night-time driving glasses and later cataracts, Webb says the Bionic Lens may make that option obsolete.

    Alongside his Bionic Lens venture, Webb has set up a foundation called the Celebration of Sight, which would donate money to organizations providing eye surgery in developing countries to improve people’s quality of life.
    “Perfect eyesight should be a human right,” he says.
    DeLuise, who has been asked to manage the foundation, says funds would also be funnelled to some of the world’s best eye research institutes.
    “He has the technology that may make all of this happen,” he says, adding several companies have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to develop a similar lens, though none have come close.



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    Sounds like the greatest thing since sliced bread.

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    Quote Originally Posted by fjpod View Post
    Sounds like the greatest thing since sliced bread.
    Always does to investors, but in reality these types of technological advancements usually fall flat and die. The ophthalmologists don't seem to be too excited about it and should be at this point, to which this OD needs 100% support from them to see this come to life.

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    There is nothing available on the details of the lens on their website (which is poorly made) or anywhere else for that matter. Everything stated in the article is exactly how every modern IOL is made and implanted and functions. Sounds like this is just another accommodating multifocal IOL, all of which have significant limitations. Unless this lens also changes surface geometry in accordance to accommodation and pupil diameter change on the fly then this is nothing special. I was at the ASCRS meeting and never heard a peep out of any cataract surgeons about this tech.

    I guess we will wait and see but I wouldn't put money on this being a success. THere are far more interesting theoretical approaches than what I've heard so far.

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    Master OptiBoarder rbaker's Avatar
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    I'm taking all my Enron profits and buying in on the ground floor.

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    Redhot Jumper lenses surgically inserted would never get cataracts ...................


    Webb says people who have the specialized lenses surgically inserted would never get cataracts because their natural lenses, which decay over time, would have been replaced.
    Even if this would or will work, masses will never have it done as they can not or never will be able to afford it.

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    The problem is they don't make anything clear in the article. Is this an IOL or a contact lens? What is it that makes it "Bionic"? Is it electrically connected to something? How does it make your vision 3xs better than normal glasses or contacts? Is it an implant designed for cataract surgery? Or is it intended to be a phakic implant? Unless there are extenuating circumstances, why would someone risk invasive cataract-like surgery to make up for a -3.00 Rx? LASIK is not invasive.

    It sounds like an accommodating or MF IOL,... ho-hum. It also sounds like the maker uses enough buzzwords in the product introduction to make it more than it is, and they get media companies to hype the product and promote it as an investment.

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    Quote Originally Posted by fjpod View Post
    The problem is they don't make anything clear in the article. Is this an IOL or a contact lens? What is it that makes it "Bionic"? Is it electrically connected to something? How does it make your vision 3xs better than normal glasses or contacts? Is it an implant designed for cataract surgery? Or is it intended to be a phakic implant? Unless there are extenuating circumstances, why would someone risk invasive cataract-like surgery to make up for a -3.00 Rx? LASIK is not invasive.

    It sounds like an accommodating or MF IOL,... ho-hum. It also sounds like the maker uses enough buzzwords in the product introduction to make it more than it is, and they get media companies to hype the product and promote it as an investment.
    It's vague for a reason. Sounds like an absolute wheel barrow full of BS, custom tailored for sucker investors.

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    Sounds like an absolute wheel barrow full of BS, ....................

    Quote Originally Posted by HindSight2020 View Post

    It's vague for a reason. Sounds like an absolute wheel barrow full of BS, custom tailored for sucker investors.

    I have seen similar post's about "Coastal" over the last few years, and Coastal turned out to be a solid golden egg.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris Ryser View Post
    I have seen similar post's about "Coastal" over the last few years, and Coastal turned out to be a solid golden egg.
    Clearly (no pun intended) there is a sucker born every minute. Anyone want to invest in my ice castle hotel in Dubai?

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