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From bottles to blisters

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the introduction of the first disposable soft contact lens to the UK. Contact lens historian and practitioner Andrew Gasson reviews innovations in disposable lenses to the present day, and charts the role of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care in their development

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A look back at the history of contact lenses shows that a number of key events followed the introduction of the original glass shells: the application of PMMA in 1937 the corneal lens in 1947 the soft lens by Wichterle in 1961 the fully-fledged, mass-produced, disposable lens by Johnson & Johnson Vision Care in 1988 and the first silicone hydrogels in 1999. Of these events, the arrival of disposable lenses has almost certainly had the greatest effect on practitioners, the public and contact lens manufacturing.

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