Instant 3D-printed contact lenses are the future.
You’ll go for an eye exam, the optometrist will check your vision, press a button, and within minutes you’ll have a pair of contact lenses that are a perfect fit and provide perfect vision.
Leonardo da Vinci came up with the theoretical idea of contact lenses in 1508. They didn’t become a practical reality until the 1930s. Yet even now they haven’t really taken off.
Three billion people globally wear glasses, but only 150 million opt for contacts. The reason: Price and comfort.
Contact lenses work out to be far more expensive than eyeglasses, especially now that 90 percent of users choose disposables.
And many people find they simply can’t wear them – because their eyes are the wrong shape.
Eyes are a bit like feet, Edan Kenig, CEO at Israeli startup Lensy, tells ISRAEL21c. They come in different shapes and sizes.
Yet off-the-shelf contact lenses are “one-size-fits-all” aside from the optical part in the center. So they more or less fit 70% of the world’s population, but for the other 30%, it’s just tough.
That’s because the big players in the optical market use the same molds to mass-manufacture millions of lenses. Some inevitably end up being too loose, some too tight, depending on tiny but significant differences in eye shape and size.
Kenig says his technology will solve both the price and comfort problems, and his lenses could be available to buy four years from now.
“I would really like to wear contact lens for the whole day,” says Kenig, who is extremely short-sighted (a minus-11 prescription).
“But now I’m limited to use them only for sport [he does Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu] for a few hours because it’s not comfortable for me.”
He’s a biophysicist by training and later became an engineer and an entrepreneur, learning how to develop ideas into products.
He saw the potential of an emerging technology called resin 3D-printing, a more sophisticated form of standard 3D printing. It uses UV light to “cure” or harden a resin, rather than squirting material through a nozzle to build objects layer by layer.
Kenig and his small team, based in Rehovot, central Israel, have adapted a form of contact lens material and developed a technique to resin 3D-print it.
They’ve got as far as printing a contact lens — and say they’re the first to have done so — but still need to perfect it before they can try it out in a human eye.
Lensy is an early-stage startup founded in early 2022 with help from the Israel Innovation Authority. The company currently has no external funding.
Big companies are also researching and developing printed lenses, says Kenig, but they’re planning what he calls “large, cumbersome, expensive printers” rather than the desktop version he’s working on.
For the 70% of people with “normal” eyes, mass-produced lenses will likely remain the best option, he says. For the other 30%, tailored lenses will be a gamechanger.
“The further away you are away from the average fit, the more problems you’re going to have, such as people with a high astigmatism, people with high myopia and people with peculiar eye shapes that are not round and not spherical.
“The optometrist will then have the opportunity to make a custom solution so the patient will have an affordable, comfortable fit that’s tailored to their needs.”
The machine will be available on a lease basis, using capsules that will cost the optometrist $50 per eye.
The lenses will be reusable, although it’s possible that the technology will evolve to produce disposables.
“Contact lenses aren’t a new solution, yet they have many disadvantages that haven’t been resolved by better materials or better designs,” Kenig says.
Around a fifth of wearers give up on them every year, he says. So although new users are always starting, the market is effectively stagnant. That’s partly to do with the cost – around $4 a day, he says – but largely because of the one-size-fits-all restriction.
“It’s like going into a shoe store,” says Kenig, “and all the shoes are size nine [42 in Europe]. So if you’re size nine, great. If you’re size eight, you will have some problems. But if you’re seven or 11, it’ll be impossible.”
Kenig says getting contact lenses today is time-consuming, cumbersome and labor-intensive, and the patient has to be really committed. Even a minor miscalculation means the optician will have to have the lenses redone.
“If you have problem with your off-the-shelf contact lens, the optician will tell you to take glasses instead. They don’t have the tools to tailor your lenses.”
In the future, Kenig says Lensy could make contact lenses that incorporate existing technology for kids that actually slows the progress of myopia as their eyes grow.
Kenig also says lenses could one day be impregnated with slow-release drugs to avoid the need for painful eye injections, and smart contact lenses could be embedded with sensors and cameras.
Produced in association with ISRAEL21c
