Interferometer wins design award

Morrisville, NC-A proprietary interferometer (LipiView Ocular Surface Interferometer, TearScience Inc.), has received the Medical Design Excellence Award from UBM Canon.

The device provides eye-care practitioners with an in-office tear film procedure for patients with dry eye that takes less than 5 minutes to perform.

UBM Canon is a leading business-to-business media company dedicated to the advanced manufacturing sector. The Medical Design Excellence Awards competition recognizes contributions and advances in the design of medical products cleared for marketing by the FDA. Entries are evaluated on the basis of design and engineering features.

“We are honored to receive this distinguished award,” said Tim Willis, chief executive officer and co-founder for TearScience.  “Historically, physicians have had to rely on subjective tests to evaluate dry eye patients. Now, [the interferometer] provides a new, quantifiable alternative for evaluating patients’ tear films. When you consider just how thin a typical tear film is in nanometers, it’s amazing what the [interferometer] can do.”

The interferometer is approved in Canada and Europe; the device has not been cleared for use in the United States by the FDA.