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Marcolin to Outfit Victoria’s Secret Angels in Eyewear

An alliance between Marcolin Group and L Brands (Victoria’s Secret and Victoria’s Secret PINK) gives rise to a new digital business model for the world of eyewear.

Time-to-market and omni-channel are keywords when it comes to competing in today’s rapidly evolving marketplace. That is why Marcolin Group and L Brands have decided to establish a unique approach to the eyewear industry that is fast-responding and digitally-oriented.

The first eyewear collection created by the partnership with L Brands was unveiled on November 8, 2018 at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. The Supermodels wore the Marcolin Group designed and manufactured Victoria’s Secret and Victoria’s Secret PINK sunglasses down the catwalk.

Victoria’s Secret and Victoria’s Secret PINK eyewear will launch as flash collections, releasing new product waves every two to three months at key times throughout the year available for purchase in stores and online. The styles will be available for purchase on victoriassecret.com.

The boutiques will showcase the eyewear with merchandising concepts specific to eyewear and in the spirit of the brands. The product will also be available for purchase directly through Victoria’s Secret and Victoria’s Secret PINK’s Instagram profiles.

The worldwide licensing agreement will be valid until the end of 2023. Global distribution in the optical market will begin in 2019.

Click HERE to read the full press release.

NEI Awards $25,000 Prize for Lab Grown Retinas

The National Eye Institute has awarded $25,000 to a team from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine for their work in creating a tissue model that replicates the complexity and functionality of a human retina.

The prize was part of the 3-D Retina Organoid Challenge 2020, an ongoing NEI initiative to generate human retina organoids from stem cells.

“If a true human macula can be recapitulated in a dish, that would spur development of needed therapies,” said NEI Director Paul A. Sieving. “Having an open competition to develop retinal organoids is a unique way to catalyze innovation. There’s still almost $1 million in prize money available for teams that can deliver on this challenge.”

The winning team was led by Wei Liu, Ph.D., at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a clinical research facility affiliated with the Montefiore Medical Center and Yeshiva University in The Bronx, NY.

Liu’s team demonstrated the generation of mini retinas that included cone photoreceptors. Liu’s tissue model is used in the research of retinitis pigmentosa and Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA).

Nearly $1 million in prize money is still available to teams in the 3-D ROC competition. The NEI encourages “multidisciplinary collaborations among vision researchers, and those with expertise in stem cell research and bioengineering” to apply, even if they have not participated in the past.

Read more about 3-D ROC here: https://nei.nih.gov/3DROC

Transitions Announces 2018 Transitions Innovation Award Finalists

Transitions Optical, Inc. has named the finalists for its annual Transitions Innovation Awards program, which recognizes both individuals and companies for their innovative efforts to support the Transitions®brand over the past year. The finalists will be honoured during Transitions Academy 2019, where the winners will be announced. 

2018 Transitions Brand Ambassador

The Transitions Brand Ambassador award celebrates an individual who best showcases their dedication to being an influential advocate of the Transitions brand. The 2018 finalists include:

Eye care Practice of the Year

The Eye care Practice of the Year title recognizes independent eye care practices and retailers that are actively promoting healthy sight to their patients and within their local communities, and who have demonstrated excellence in supporting the Transitionsbrand. The 2018 finalists include:

Canadian Retailer of the Year

The Canadian Retailer of the Year title is awarded to a retailer in Canada for actively supporting the Transitions brand and demonstrating a commitment to enhancing the vision of their customers and communities. The 2018 finalists include:

Best in Marketing

Best in Marketing honours an individual or company for their creative and strategic marketing tactics to effectively promote the Transitions brand or Transitions family of products among customers or within their communities. The 2018 finalists include:

Best in Training

The Best in Training award celebrates an individual, company or educator that has shown creativity in developing or offering training and education opportunities that include dispensing photochromic lenses, the Transitions brand or Transitions® family of products. The 2018 finalists include:

Click HERE for the full press release.

Scientists Develop a “Contact Lens” Patch To Treat Eye Diseases

Researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have developed a new device for delivering drugs to the eye for treating diseases such as macular degeneration.

The research team, led by Professor Chen Peng of the School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, published their results in the November issue of Nature Communications.

The device could be an alternative to injections, which carry an infection risk, and eye drops, which get washed away by tears and have difficulty penetrating the eye’s defenses. “These two current methods only produce a burst release of drug with a short effective duration,” said Chen. “This is not ideal, especially when treating chronic progressive eye diseases that require slow and sustained treatment, such as glaucoma.”

The new approach the team developed to treating eye diseases consists of a small (2 millimetre by 2 millimetre), contact lens-like patch that is covered in nine biodegradable microneedles. The needles are made from hyaluronic acid, a chemical that is found naturally in the eye, and a common ingredient of eye drops.

The patch is applied similarly to a contact lens and pressed onto the eye “briefly and gently.” The microneedles then detach themselves into the cornea, where they deliver medication at a controlled rate. Because the needles are made of a biodegradable material, they eventually dissolve away.

“The microneedles are made of a substance found naturally in the body, and we have shown in lab tests on mice that they are painless and minimally invasive,” said Professor Chen. “If we successfully replicate the same results in human trials, the patch could become a good option for eye diseases that require long-term management at home, such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy.“

Chen said that his team has filed a patent for the technology and are currently looking for clinicians to study the feasibility of medical trials.

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