CooperVision today announced a series of investments designed to reinforce its worldwide leadership in myopia management, including actions to further bolster commercial infrastructure, pipeline growth, clinical study sponsorship, and advocacy support.
“For more than a decade, CooperVision has been changing people’s lives through myopia management, spearheading how the category has evolved in partnership with top eye care professionals, educators, and industry associations. While our range of optical interventions is unrivaled, we know there is considerable work still to be done by removing barriers, accelerating clinical adoption, and affirming myopia management as standard of care for countless children,” said Debbie Olive, CooperVision’s Chief Commercial Officer.
To provide even more dedicated support to combat the global myopia epidemic, CooperVision has elevated the myopia management group within its global commercial structure, creating the role of Vice President, Myopia Management & Cornea Care. Jennifer Lambert, who has spent the past four years as Senior Director, Global Myopia Management, has been appointed to this leadership role. The company is also adding managerial roles specific to customer engagement and new product market development, collectively designed to transform the myopia category for long-term success.
In parallel, the organization has revealed that a series of new research and development projects are underway, including investigations of novel optical designs, novel treatments, and foundational concepts relating to myopia’s onset and progression. Among these are a muti-site clinical study for a next-generation soft contact lens for myopia control. This builds on the widely prescribed MiSight® 1 day contact lens, the first and only FDA-approved* soft contact lens proven to help slow the progression of myopia in children aged 8-12 at the initiation of treatment.†1
After extensively publishing data from the longest-running soft contact lens study among children with MiSight® 1 day,*1-3 led by CooperVision’s research team, the company is now broadening its efforts to explore the economics of myopia and its treatment. Collaborating with Manchester University’s School of Optometry and Centre for Health Economics, the company has funded a PhD position for the program, working with Professor Philip Morgan and Senior Lecturer Dr. Carole Maldonado-Codina. Preliminary reporting is anticipated to begin next year.
CooperVision has also sustained its substantial financial support for myopia management advocacy initiatives around the planet, such as its pioneering partnership with the World Council of Optometry to develop and advance myopia management as standard of care, its Myopia Collective program with the American Optometric Association, and myopia management education for the academic community via the International Association of Contact Lens Educators (IACLE). It also sponsors ongoing efforts from the International Myopia Institute, the World Society of Paediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness.
“We are fortunate to act from positions of strength in our science, our portfolio, and our customer relationships—all of which point us toward continuing to extend our voice and expand our leadership. Not only are a generation of children today depending on the work we are doing in partnership with the optometry and ophthalmology professions, but also millions of children in the decades ahead whose lives may be changed for the better through our innovation and efforts,” said Lambert.
