Sauflon joins U.S. contact lens market

UK-based Sauflon recently announced that it is entering the U.S. contact lens market with clariti 1day (somofilcon A), a daily disposable silicone hydrogel lens.

“The daily disposable market is growing, particularly the U.S. market,” says Bradley Wells, managing director of Sauflon UK, speaking exclusively to Optometry Times. “Practitioners are upgrading patients into daily disposable products because it’s the most convenient and safest way to wear contact lenses. Silicone hydrogel is giving patients the healthiest material. Patients can wear the lenses during the day as long as they want to.”

At the same time, Sauflon is launching line extensions to clariti with clariti 1day toric and clariti 1day multifocal. “We are providing a line extension from the beginning,” says Mr. Wells. “We’ve been working our way through FDA approval for our clariti range of products. It just happens that we’ve been able to bring new products to market quicker -that allows us to bring the family to market at the same time.”

According to Sauflon, products are priced to allow eyecare practitioners (ECPs) to sell silicone hydrogel lenses at the same price as conventional hydrogel lenses. “The patient can benefit from silicone hydrogel products without having to pay more for them,” Mr. Wells says. “This is what we call affordable innovation. We’re looking for as many patients to benefit from silicone hydrogel daily disposable as possible. We have a process that allows us to bring products to market for ECPs to sell them at a very affordable price. Dailies Total 1 (Alcon) and TruEye (Johnson & Johnson Vision Care) are very premium-priced products, whereas clariti 1day is priced to be affordable.”

In addition, Sauflon’s policy, set in 1985, is to sell contact lenses only to ECPs. The company will locate and close down any channel supplying product to Internet outlets.

Sauflon is a privately owned manufacturer of both contact lenses and solutions. Mr. Wells’s father Alan founded the company in 1985. “We started life as a solutions company, and in 2004 started to manufacture our own range of monthly and daily disposable lenses in methafilcon material,” says Mr. Wells. The company introduced a range of silicone hydrogel lenses in 2008 and a year later launched clariti 1day, at the time the second daily disposable silicone hydrogel lens.ODT