Ciba Vision-Bausch & Lomb agreement benefits those most in need

Blind and visually impaired people around the world are the unlikely beneficiaries of the patent settlement with Bausch & Lomb announced last week relating to Ciba Vision's revolutionary silicone hydrogel contact lens technology.

Part of the settlement royalties from Ciba Vision licensing its silicone hydrogel intellectual property will go to the Australian group that helped develop the breakthrough contact lens technology, the Cooperative Research Centre for Eye Research and Technology (Crcert), now known as the Vision Crc, the world's largest vision correction research, education and public health group.

It is intended that these royalties will be spent partly through the Vision Crc on new, breakthrough vision correction research and partly through one of its core partners, the International Centre for Eyecare Education (Icee), on developing new ways of bringing vision care to hundreds of millions of people throughout the world who are functionally blind or partially sighted simply because they have no glasses or contact lenses.

Icee, a Member of the Who-Iapb Vision 2020 Task Force, is an Ngo dedicated to eliminating avoidable blindness and impaired vision due to uncorrected refractive error in disadvantaged communities throughout the world by creating the human resources and systems needed to provide proper vision care and glasses.