Charenton-le-Pont, France  — Essilor announced that it has been named by Forbes as one of 100 of the world’s “Most Innovative Companies” for 2016. This is the sixth year in a row Essilor has earned a spot on this prestigious list, which recognizes publicly traded companies that have been identified by investors as being innovative now and in the future.

Innovation is at the core of Essilor’s strategy and has shaped its corporate culture for 170 years. The company currently invests more than 200€ million per year in research and innovation, and has three Innovation and Technology Centers staffed by 500 researchers throughout the world who collaborate with an international network of a hundred public and private research partners to develop solutions to provide better solutions for all consumers’ vision needs, whatever their geography or income.

As part of its mission to improve lives by improving sight, Essilor is widening its field of innovation to include all aspects of visual health and ensure the company meets the vision needs of the 7.2 billion people in the world. The company’s R&D efforts are focused in six key areas including: presbyopia among seniors; myopia in young adults; well-being and visual health; sun; polarized and photochromic lenses; and the development of innovative services for online sales and inclusive business models.

Committed to bringing innovation to all populations and improve access to vision correction, Essilor launched, earlier this year, the See Change Challenge to seek innovative solutions to improve the lives of the 2.5 billion people who live with uncorrected poor vision by facilitating access to vision care. The See Change Challenge aims to uncover low-cost, easy-to-use and scalable solutions that can be used by primary vision care providers in underserved areas to accurately measure eye refractive errors, as 95% of these 2.5bn people live in emerging countries.

To read complete press release, click HERE.