One-day lens inventor returns to the market

Ron Hamilton, former managing director of Scottish firm Award plc, developed a one-day lens in 1992 (News, June 5 1992). The company was purchased by Bausch & Lomb in February 1996 and Mr Hamilton worked on B&L's one-day contact lens expansion until 1997. In the past 18 months he has formed a new company, Provis, and developed what he describes as an advanced contact lens manufacturing process at a plant in Blantyre, south east of Glasgow. Mr Hamilton told optician that the successful scale-up of phase one of a 70 million lenses per annum manufacturing facility was now complete, with an investment of &\#163;2m in the production line. Daysoftuv has a CE mark and conforms to the Medical Devices Directive 93/42/EEC and is produced under ISO9002, ISO14388 and EN 46002 accreditation. The lens comes with UV blocking, handling tint and what Mr Hamilton describes as an advanced tri-curve design. He said that Provis' strategy was to focus exclusively on making and selling the lenses, to be the lowest cost producer, and the 'lowest cost-to-serve supplier' by using the e-commerce advantages of the internet. 'Our price to opticians will be very competitive, with the optician setting the price to his patients,' he said. Daysoftuv will be available to opticians in a phased launch later this year using an interactive, global, business-to-business (B2B) web site. This will allow practitioners to order for 'Stock' or for 'Patient specific', the latter option allowing delivery direct to the practice or to the patient's home, if so instructed by the ordering optician. The lenses will come in two box sizes of 32 or 96 lenses suitable for one-month or three-month orders. After trials, the web site details will be announced in December. Phone or fax ordering will also be offered and the company will consider own-brand packaging.