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NHS 60th Anniversary Project
daysoft ... best practice in vision-care
daysoft ... the focussed approach to safer eye-care!
When Leonardo da Vinci first conceived the idea of contact lenses in 1508, little did he realise that they would one day become an integral component of modern day eye care. Recent DoH figures estimate that there are over 3.3 million contact lens wearers in the UK alone and rising, one in three of whom are choosing to wear daily disposable lenses.
One company very much at the forefront of this development is the Scotland-based company, “daysoft®”, the only optical firm in the world dedicated to the manufacture and sale of 1-day disposable contact lenses. Founded by Ron Hamilton in 2002, the original inventor of the 1-day disposable contact lens, daysoft® to date has sold over 150 MILLION lenses made to its process patents world-wide.
Marketed in both high and mid water content materials, daysoft® contact lenses are manufactured to exacting standards in its modern process laboratory using equipment designed and developed by the daysoft® team and have a wider power range than any other daily disposable lens. This highly focused approach allows the company to offer its products to opticians throughout the UK and exporting to 25 countries.
Birth of the daily-disposable contact lenses
In revolutionising the contact lenses market with his invention, Ron Hamilton introduced new levels of safer eye care, convenience and comfort to millions of lens wearers, but his journey in doing was not a simple one as he recounts. ‘Contact lens wear grew rapidly in popularity throughout the 1980s when it appeared that ‘extended wear’ lenses were the product of the future. My then US employer was the brand leader for such lenses. Simply put, extended wear refers to continuous, day and night, wear for up to a month before lens removal, cleaning and then re-use and represented great convenience compared to the traditional method of daily wear followed by daily cleaning’.
Believing that the future would be an extended wear, disposable lens, Ron put a Product Development proposal to the Board which was immediately rejected. ‘It was reasoned that the manufacture of such a product was too costly and would also threaten the company’s profitability on cleaning solutions’.
Undaunted, Ron quit his job to pursue his idea, securing private funding to set-up a UK company to make monthly-disposable contact lenses. A major setback followed when the promised funding was withdrawn and Ron suffered the frustration of watching from the wings as similar rival products were being developed. Working in a small home laboratory using their own funds, Ron together with a business partner then made extensive patent filings on a unique manufacturing process. However serious problems including adverse publicity were emerging in the US due to complications from using both extended wear lenses and “no-clean” extended wear lenses. Although Ron had been spared from making major investments in such lenses he was disappointed because any hopes he still harboured about making extended wear lenses seemed dashed.
Eureka Moment
It was clear now that extended wear was now seen as potentially “dangerous” and also that the standard practice of cleaning contact lens also raised health-care concerns, even sight loss. What happened next was a “eureka moment” as Ron recalls. ‘Would all these problems over extended wear and lens cleaning be overcome if lenses could be made at such a low cost that they could be simply thrown away every day? This was an extreme thought though because, at that time, two soft contact lenses retailed for £150 plus cleaning solutions costs’.
Ron undertook some new costings based on volume and a revamped manufacturing process to reduce unit labour costs, also incorporating new precision moulding technologies to ensure, in accordance with his patent, that the lens would never be handled. It would be similar to the formation of a pearl in an oyster shell, but what would the cost be?
Once Ron realised that, by scaling up his process to industrial levels he could make high-quality soft contact lenses for just a few pence, he knew then that he just had invented the daily-disposable contact lens. But to be certain that the then prevailing contact lens systems really did pose eye-health problems and that daily-disposability could be the answer, Ron sought the expert opinion of Professor Nathan Effron, Professor of Clinical Optometry at the University of Manchester, presenting his proto-type products to him in early 1992.
Professor Effron’s verdict was a positive one, first outlining how latest research agreed thatcontact lenses should not be worn overnight. As for the lens cleaning process, studies had shown that the protein build-up on lenses during the day becomes denatured during cleaning and disinfection, leading to possible adverse ocular reactions. In the case of ineffective cleaning/disinfection systems, an increased risk of eye infection via a contaminated lens was also possible. Professor Effron concluded that “a daily-wear/daily disposable lens system would gain wide appeal amongst patients and practitioners as being a safe and convenient modality of vision correction.” Ron was in business!
Product Launch
Shortly after an article Ron had written about his new product appeared in the “Optician” magazine resulting in an appearance on BBC Radio’s “New Ideas” programme, from which an enthusiastic inquiry from Boots Opticians followed. With a new business plan and Scottish Enterprise funding, backed by the endorsement of his patent by the British Technology Group, Ron launched his product on the market in late 1992
At the same time, news of serious eye infections, in some cases resulting in loss of sight emerged, linked to ‘extended-wear’ lens use, Ron knew the time was now right for his product. In July 1993 he acquired a 6,000 sq ft building in Livingston, Scotland, where using purpose-built equipment and specially trained staff he was able to market his lenses for sale throughout the UK and Europe within 12 months. By July 1995 Ron had expanded his premises and staff further still, selling millions of his lenses, mainly through Boots outlets who had shown great faith in the product.
In 1996 Ron sold distribution rights for his lenses to Bausch & Lomb, the world’s biggest eye-care company for £20million with an option to buy-out the intellectual property rights within 4 years, which they eventually did. Ron went on to further expand his business before bowing out in 1997 into retirement, having secured big returns to both Scottish Enterprise and the British Technology Group for their initial investments in the company.
Man with a Vision!
Today B&L employs over 1,000 staff in Scotland manufacturing contact lenses with over 2 billion lenses having been made there using Ron’s intellectual property, but perhaps Ron’s proudest achievement is the realisation that the use of his daily-disposable contact lenses have been proved to avoid the eye problems mentioned by Professor Effron at the start of his journey in 1992.
But Ron’s story doesn’t end there. Disappointed with the low UK take-up of daily-disposable contact lenses and the fact that two million people still clean their lenses every day, he returned to the lens marketplace in 2002, forming daysoft®, who offer a unique web-based ordering and supply system that offers daily-disposable contact lenses at prices comparable to cleaning systems.
So 20 years later, Ron Hamilton is still pursuing his vision of the future for safer eye care on behalf contact lens wearers everywhere and with no less justification as he concludes. ‘In recent months there have been two worldwide recalls of contact lens cleaning solutions with reports of wearers requiring corneal transplants. My aim at daysoft® is to ensure that we continue to produce the safest possible contact lens possible to ensure our users never have to suffer any similar distressing experiences’. End
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