Grow the market

With 3D seldom out of the headlines, it's about time contact lenses stole back some of the limelight and a meeting on Monday (Jan 24) should bring them into focus. CIBA Vision is heading to Westminster, well, a studio in Westminster, to tackle some of the business issues facing UK practices, as well as giving strategies for business growth. There's certainly room for growth with contact lenses - 63 per cent of the UK population aged 16-70 years need vision correction, but just under 8 per cent wear contact lenses. It's quite staggering, really. Both contact lenses and solutions have come on in leaps and bounds in recent years, which, sadly, can't be said for the number of wearers. Earlier this month Contact Lens Spectrum carried a nice piece on International Contact Lens Prescribing, where the oldest patient receiving lenses for the first time was a 95-year-old female in Japan. Now, if a 95-year-old can be a new convert to contact lenses, there must be some hope that others can be persuaded to do likewise.