Bionic lens can restore high-quality vision

An optometrist in British Columbia has developed an IOL that his company’s website says “is capable of restoring quality vision at all distances, without glasses, contact lenses or corneal refractive procedures, and without the vision problems that have plagued current accommodative and multifocal [IOL] designs.” Ocumetrics Technology Corp. founder Garth Webb, OD, says that implantation of his Ocumetrics Bionic Lens can result in vision three times better than 20/20.

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Webb told the Canadian media that he has spent $3 million researching and developing the lens over the past 8 years. It can be implanted via a standard, 8-minute surgery through a sub-2.7-mm incision with the aid of a femtosecond laser.

The IOL is made of inert biocompatible polymeric materials. Its camera-like optics can shift focus from optical infinity to very close range more rapidly than the perceptual limits of the human brain, according to the company.

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“The Ocumetics Bionic Lens is the product of extensive research and development, and is a trademark that applies to a host of intraocular lens designs incorporating one or more patented concepts to produce an intraocular lens that auto-regulates within the eye after being inserted through a sub-2.7 mm incision,” the company’s webiste says. “Wavefront correction for higher order aberrations can be sculpted within the Ocumetics Bionic Lens for enhanced visual function. “

The lens is not designed to address corneas that are cloudy from trauma, keratoconus, and other conditions, or in cases of severe macular degeneration, severe genetic retinal disease, torn or damaged optic nerves, or brain damage affecting the visual system, according to the company’s website. Also, it cannot be implanted in eyes in which the natural lens already has been removed.

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The lens must be tested in clinical trials on animals and then humans. On its website, the company says it expects approval of the lens in Canada and Europe in about two years and U.S. FDA clearance in two to three years after that.

Office-based surgery coming sooner than you think

Rather than release the lens to the open marketplace, Ocumetics Technology Corp. is using a referral-based selection process to identify medical centers and surgeons to implant it. Estimated surgical fees for implantation will be around $3,200 per eye, the company says, although it stresses that it does not have control over such charges.