This month, we focus on BostonSight, a non-profit organization and scleral lens manufacturer. I recently had the pleasure to speak with BostonSight President and CEO, Sara Yost.
SARA YOST,
PRESIDENT AND CEO, BOSTONSIGHT
Ms. Yost, please tell us about your organization in terms of its history and direction.
BostonSight is a nonprofit healthcare organization based in Needham, MA. It was founded in 1992 with a mission to address the unmet needs of patients suffering from ocular surface disease and vision loss from corneal disease, damage, or injury. We started a small clinic to provide scleral lenses for this purpose.
In 1994, we developed and manufactured the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved fluid-ventilated scleral lens for therapeutic and irregular corneal indications. We hold patents in scleral lens design and manufacturing, and we also share a patent with the University of Rochester in correcting higher-order aberrations (HOAs).
We wanted to share what we learned so that patients outside of our clinic could benefit. We published peer-reviewed literature. Since 2007, we have trained practitioners on our Boston PROSE treatment in tertiary eyecare centers in four countries.
In 2017, we launched BostonSight Scleral with our new FitConnect platform. BostonSight Scleral is our data-driven lens based on scleral shape. It has left and right eye designs for more efficient and effective fitting. FitConnect is an all-in-one resource and practice management tool for fitting scleral lenses.
Patient care and expanding global access to our innovations remains at our core. In 2018, we partnered with LV Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad, India, and we recently partnered with Spectrum International to bring our lenses to patients in Latin America. We strongly believe in collaboration to push the industry forward. We also have a focus on connecting patients to share experiences and information.
Tell us about any new developments in which BostonSight is involved.
ScleralIG is an empirical fitting option that integrates scleral topography with FitConnect to produce image-guided, custom fits. BostonSight developed SmartSight technology, with different front-surface eccentricity (FSE) options within one trial set. We will soon launch SmartSight HOA, which incorporates HOA correction for up to 28 Zernike polynomials through FitConnect.
SmartChannel technology is also available to navigate over scleral lumps and bumps. SmartChannels can also reduce suction and increase tear exchange and oxygen permeability. Lastly, we’re expanding our diameter offering in all markets.
Tell us your vision for the contact lens field in the short term (less than 5 years) and in the long term (20 years from now).
In the short term, we’ll see improvements in scleral topography as well as in diagnostic instruments that can combine functionality, so that one scan will provide all of the information that a lab needs.
I think that our industry will continue to be collaborative. So much data is collected daily from manufacturers and practitioners that right now is siloed. This data, if combined, would be a powerful industry asset.
Over the long term, health care will not be what it is today. The pandemic has forced us to make rapid changes; for example, telemedicine has been adopted broadly because the barriers that had been up for so long have been removed. We still have a long way to go with telemedicine, but combined with continued advancements in mobile and remote diagnostics, remote populations will have access to medical care that was previously impossible to deliver.
Also in the long term, 3D printing will likely become applicable in some areas of the industry. Smart lenses and lenses used for drug delivery will be mainstream. On the entertainment side, contact lenses may include virtual reality technologies. It’s an exciting future ahead. CLS