The acquisition of Transitions Optical by Essilor has now been finalized. The transaction, announced in Capsule DotClip on August 9, went through all the approval steps. Since acquiring 51% of the shares of PPG, Essilor has become the sole owner of Transitions Optical. The transaction is valued at $1.73 billion.

 

Various changes in Transitions’s senior management have been announced.  Rick Elias, Senior vice-president Optical and Specialty Materials and Chief Executive Officer, is retiring. Dave Cole, after working for 24 years at Transitions, is going back to PPG as vice-president of the Packaging Coatings Unit. Paddy McDermott is now the new president of Transitions. Finally, Bertrand Roy, senior vice-president of Strategic Partnerships at Essilor, will lead the Transitions Optical Business Unit for the Essilor group. All these changes are becoming effective today, April 1, 2014.

UK researchers have developed a method of administering drugs such as Avastin or Lucentis with eye drops.

 

The research, conducted at University College of London on animal models, shows that it is possible to create formulations of tiny nanoparticles loaded with the AMD drug Avastin and deliver significant concentrations to the back of the eye.

 

“Injecting drugs into the eye is uncomfortable, and patients hate it. They often have to go to the hospital to receive the injections every month for two years,” says researcher Francesca Cordeiro. “It is impossible to exaggerate the relief patients would feel at not having to experience injections into their eyes.”

 

Transporting drugs like Avastin or Lucentis into the back of the eye using eye drops was thought to be nearly impossible, due to the size of the molecules, which do not cross the eye’s anatomical barriers.

 

“All the components we used are safe and well-established in the field, meaning we could potentially move quite quickly to get the technology into trials in patients – but the timescales are dependent on funding.”

Source:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.201303433/abstract;jsessionid=4A3153380F2AC9284357F7E41F2E4EEC.f01t02?systemMessage=Wiley+Online+Library+will+be+disrupted+Saturday%2C+15+March+from+10%3A00-12%3A00+GMT+%2806%3A00-08%3A00+EDT%29+for+essential+maintenance

 

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140306093806.htm

 

A clinical trial funded by the National Eye Institute in the United States suggests that contact lenses are the ideal treatment for babies who undergo cataract surgery.

 

Babies who undergo cataract surgery, like adults, are generally implanted with an artificial lens in their eye. This is to ensure the best long-term vision and reduce the risk of infection, compared to an external contact lens.

 

However, it is difficult for surgeons to judge the correct focusing power required when implanting the lenses in babies, as their eyes are still developing and growing. Also, there are more postoperative side effects for babies than there are for adults.

 

The trial, involving 114 newborn infants across 12 clinical centres, showed that there was no difference in visual acuity between the two methods after a few months or after four years. The group that had received artificial lenses, however, developed more postsurgical complications.

 

“For most infants with unilateral cataract, contact lenses are a better option than an artificial lens,” says Dr. Scott Lambert, the study’s lead investigator.

Source:

http://eyewiretoday.com/view.asp?20140311-contact_lenses_recommended_for_babies_after_cataract_surgery   

 

Zyloware has expanded to Canada by opening up the subsidiary Zyloware Eyewear Canada ULC. Sandra Laramee will be its national sales director.

 

The US company will begin by selling directly in Ontario, with the intention of selling nationwide, thus possibly replacing current Canadian distributors.

 

“After carefully reviewing the territory, our team has selected the brands and styles best suited for the Canadian market,” said Zyloware’s CEO, Christopher Shyer. “We are especially eager to start working directly with the Canadian optometrists that have been purchasing our frames for years.”

 

For now, all of the products available for the selected brands on www.zyloware.com are available to the Canadian market.

 

The new sales director for Canada, Sandra Laramee, has been working in the optical industry for 30 years.

Source:

http://blog.eyesurf.info/?p=13232

 

 

Roshan Thomas, a Vancouver optometrist, and Zeenab Kassam, a Calgary nurse, were among those killed in the hotel attack in Kabul, Afghanistan last Thursday.  

 

In all, nine people, including two young children, were slain when four teenaged gunmen entered the heavily secured Serena Hotel, considered one of the safest spots in the Afghan capital.

 

A mother of three, Roshan Thomas, 60, had worked on humanitarian projects for the past decade as part of the Aga Khan Development Network. Mrs. Thomas and her husband, an ophthalmologist, had provided eye care in the country for five consecutive summers in the 1990s. She had also founded the Sparks Academy Kabul (Omid-e-Afghanistan, which translates as “Afghanistan’s hope” in the Dari language), a school attended by children from different ethnicities and religions.   

 

“I spoke to her a few hours before the incident,” said her son, Karim Thomas, in an interview to the Globe and Mail. “She was doing the work that she loved. She had had some exciting things happen with the education program and she was in very good spirits.”

 

The education program founded by Mrs. Thomas began with 50 students in 2003 and has grown to 900 in six different centres today.

 

Source:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/friends-pay-tribute-to-vancouver-woman-killed-in-kabul/article17613186/