In a break from news about contact tracing, I bring you some about contact lenses. 

Nearsightedness is a very common condition where sufferers can see objects close to them clearly, but struggle with objects further away. The cause of this lies in the shape of the eye causing light rays to bend incorrectly and therefore presenting images incorrectly. 

You may have thought that we mastered eyeglass technology centuries ago, but US-based medtech company Visioneering Technologies (ASX: VTI) is seeking to use contact lenses to improve vision of wearers over time. 

The Company has today announced that their latest clinical trial is now underway, with the first patient having completed their initial visit for the trial. The PROTECT study (Progressive Myopia Treatment Evaluation for NaturalVue Multifocal Contact Lens Trial) is a large, multicenter double blind trial that spans Canada, the United States and Hong Kong. 

The trial will see 144 healthy nearsighted children between the ages of 7 and 13 wearing a current prescription between -0.75D and -5.00D be enrolled. Children will be randomly assigned a control lens, or Visioneering’s NaturalVue Multifocal contact lens. 

Researchers will evaluate the lens’ effectiveness by tracking the changes in refractive error progression and eye length over time- these are both important markers of myopia progression. Participants will be followed up with one year after initial prescription, with data expected for release in mid-2023. 

The Company is hopeful that the NaturalVue MF lens will outperform standard lenses when it comes to delaying and managing myopia progression. 

Chief Medical Officer at VTI, Dr. Ashley Tuan said: “With 2 billion myopes in the world, and 5 billion expected by 2050, now is a prime time for VTI to be at the forefront of innovation, development and clinical validation in this industry. We are an early leader in the rapidly expanding area of myopia progression control, with safe and effective products that are available in over eleven countries. The results from PROTECT will allow us to have head to head comparison in terms of treatment effectiveness against other products that went through similarly designed multi centred studies. The results from PROTECT, starting with the 1-year interim results in mid-2023, will add to our extensive real-world data, providing practitioners and parents with greater knowledge of their choices in the management of paediatric myopia.” 

The study will further clinically validate Visioneering’s product and mission, and prove essential in decisions making around commercial agreements and partnerships. 

Previous Visioneering study data following a 6 year study showed that the NaturalVue MF lens decreased myopia progression in 95% of test subjects, of which there were 196.