New Year honour for Ron Hamilton

Ron Hamilton, founder of daily disposable contact lens manufacturer Daysoft, has been awarded a CBE for services to the contact lens industry in the Queen's New Year's Honours list. Hamilton commented: 'Inventors come well down the publicity ladder after entertainers and other celebrities, so I could easily have been missed.' He added that he has had emails from contact lens colleagues around the world following the announcement. Daysoft lenses were launched at Optrafair in April 2001. Today the company, based in Blantyre in Scotland, employs 200, and sells over 1.5 million daily-disposable lenses a week. Compared to 2010, sales in 2011 were up 20 per cent and profit before interest and taxes doubled to £1.4m.