EyeMed Technologies Ltd. is a medical device start-up company that focuses on the Premium IOL Cataract surgery market. officebased, simple treatment. EyeMed’s vision is to guarantee Emmetropia (best vision possible) and “glasses off” for every lens implanted patient. There is a significant number of cases in which, post-Cataract surgery, the patient is left with a refractive error causing the patient a deficiency in his eyesight because of misalignment of the focal point of the lens. Today there are solutions for residual refractive errors due to IOL misposition, however they are either a burden on the patient (whether it is to wear eyeglasses or to settle for a deficient vision) or they require additional surgical procedures with all attached risks and resources. The VaLens® innovative solution is intended to be implanted in every Cataract surgery embedding a premium lens and to enable simple solution to all those patients that need a postoperative adjustment after implantation.
Cataract surgery is the most frequent surgical procedure in medicine today, with about 30M surgeries performed annually. The premium IOL segment sales projection, in 2024, is a $3.1B annual revenues. Studies show that 28.8% of Cataract implanted patients have a residual refractive error bigger than 0.5D and 7% more than 1.0D, errors that should be corrected. Ophthalmologists have been implanting multifocal and premium technologies since decades, and still this technology has been used in only 3-9% of lens implantations world-wide. Percentage of usage is not growing even there are lots of efforts in this direction, mostly because surgeons do not feel confident enough to be able to guarantee their valuable patients that they will have emmetropia post-surgery. Additionally, surgeons prefer not to deal with the likelihood of post-surgery touch-ups that require additional time, resources and are a burden from a patient perspective. EyeMed’s device, the VaLens®, will deliver surgeons the confidence they need with reduced resources and ensure patients with the best results.
The VaLens® foldable adjustable IOL (Spheric or Toric) consists of a nitinol mechanism placed in a haptic-optic cradle. The Nitinol mechanism by using a continuous green laser to suture lysis, which creates an anterior or posterior movement of the lens in up to 3 pre-defined steps of 0.35 to 1.05 diopter in each direction. The Toric IOL: the physician activates the Nitinol mechanism by using a continuous green laser to suture lysis, which creates rotational movement either clockwise or counterclockwise in up to 3 pre-defined steps of 5 to 15 degrees in each direction.
13 VaLens® IOLs were successfully implanted, adjusted and were followed up for 3 months. EyeMed plans to begin First-in-Human study by the end of 2025.