One of the effects of aging is reduced vision including presbyopia the loss of the ability to see nearby objects. The current non-surgical approach is to use reading glasses. But companies set on developing a procedure to improve reduced vision see a big opportunity with the aging baby boom population.
Johnson & Johnson Development Corp, the venture capital arm of J&J (NYSE: JNJ) is one of the latest backers for ReVision Optics, a company that raised $55 million in a financing round to advance its treatment for presbyopia. Its corneal inlay device, Raindrop near vision inlay, slightly changes the surface shape of the cornea. Another new investor is Russian venture capital firm Rusnano MedInvest. Other investors include Canaan, ProQuest, InterWest and Domain
The financing round will help commercialize the procedure in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, according to a company statement. ReVision developed a commercial supply and distribution agreement with NovaMedica. It will also fund a clinical trial. The company recently completed patient enrollment in its U.S. Investigational Device Exemption clinical trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of its Raindrop device.
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In addition to ReVision, AcuFocus has also developed a corneal inlay device. They see a lot of opportunity in the market to surgically improve focus related to age, with an estimated 60 million procedures performed each year.
Although there have been many attempts to surgically correct presbyopia, none of the procedures has been proven safe and effective enough to become the standard of care, according to the American Academy of Opthamology. Some surgeons have said they would be reluctant to operate on patients when they may still need reading glasses in some situations anyway. But if the procedures being developed by ReVision and others can demonstrate better outcomes, that could change.
[Photo credit: eye photo from Flickr user helgabj]
