Just came across this company so haven't read too much on it. Any other practitioners invested in this company?
Just a few thoughts: Everything mentioned on this video is so true in a clinical setting. Chair time for fitting patients with existing MF contacts options take quite a lot of visits and with the success rates being so low, it's hardly worth the effort sometimes. The ease of just having to correct the distance portion sounds really good from a fitting perspective and if it really does work, I see the presbyopic patients segment more profitable than the myopia control segment that is heavily promoted right now. Unfortunate that I haven't tried fitting the lens but since it is now launched here in Aus, maybe can test it for myself on patients. Few challenges though - multifocal glasses are very profitable so there maybe a conflict of interest in recommendations if the patient decides to choose only one of the two options and not having both glasses and contacts. Presbyopic patients are older so some of them don't like to bother with flimsy contact lenses, or maybe less adaptable to change and prefer glasses, though the future generations of presbyopes may be different.
Other things I just considered on the top of my head: Seems from the design - there will be significant peripheral blur. Practically how would it affect vision for patients? Would driving be affected? Would central vision still be good? Existing MF contact options have to compromise vision slightly. If used for myopic control on young kids - would it be safe for very young children to wear contact lenses with risk of infection (poor hygiene) vs benefit of myopia control (though daily disposable wearing schedule helps).
Myopia control seems more of a thing for Asia and never really hit off in Aus. Think of how many Ortho K wearers you know. If this product hits off in Asia, then it will be big for the company. There are a lot more ortho K wearers in Asia and this product could be a replacement - I would think this would have a cost advantage (depending on their price), less risk of infection and better comfort. With the studies, showed in the other thread - I think the difference between the Coopervision (CVH) study and the retrospective study on VTI is that CVH used cycloplegic exams to measure the refractive error while VTI's study was in a clinical setting. Without explaining too much, pros of cycloplegic exams - makes the results more "stable" whereas clinical setting could have more variations. But clinical setting is more "real". I'm thinking the results could be skewed though, if refraction in clinical setting was actually overcorrected prior to lens wear (common in young kids), so the reduction in myopic progression maybe exaggerated. The fact that there was 2 patients with regression in myopia kinda proves it cos usually chances of that is low and the higher cause of that is previous over correction. Luckily though the results of the two patients were only very low refractive error to begin with. I think it will take more time for the studies to show how effective VTI's lens will be. I'm pretty excited if the results continue as good as it is cos it's pretty amazing. I think the main thing for the results is not proving that it works, cos previous studies have already done so, but more how it compares with their competition - which is mainly Coopervision, in this space. If they are only a slight bit better, then switching costs are high. If they smash competition, then I think we have a winner.
Marketing - I think they need to do an amazing job in this area in order to make it as current incumbents have already spent a lot more in this area. They gotta convince practitioners that the product actually works - usually through CPD talks/ dinners. It's actually pretty sticky in how optometrists recommend contact lenses. For myself, I have a preference of lens I usually recommend to my patients, because clinically for me - it works and patient satisfaction is high. So that's my go-to lens usually as first choice. VTI have to convince us to replace our current lens of choice, and that will take time as we trial it on our patients. However, that is only part of it, as not all optometrist can control which brand they sell. Majority (in Australia at least) is corporate - Luxottica and Specsavers. If both of these companies headquarters decide not to stock it, then chances are it won't hit off here at all.
I haven't invested yet mainly cos of the financials. Looking at it quickly, it seems like it will need another cap raise this year. I don't expect amazing revenues just yet at this stage to make it breakeven as these products usually takes time for markets to accept. If it really hits off after this "trialling" phase though, I would expect gross profit margins to increase from current 20% to at least 40% (Coopervision is like 60% GPM). Would like to test the lens for myself and see it being stocked in the larger companies/ Asia before putting money in. Also would be keeping an eye out on the studies in the future to see if it continues to show such great results in reduction of myopia progression.
Hopefully this post is of some use to you guys. Haven't read enough to comment more since it's only been half a day's worth of looking at this.
VTI Price at posting:
10.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held