THIS MONTH’S FOCUS is on Black Pearl Global Investments (BPGI), parent company of Black Pearl Vision (BPV). CLS recently had the pleasure to hear from Shanté Williams, PhD, MBA, CEO of BPGI.

 

 

SHANTÉ WILLIAMS, PHD, MBA

 

PLEASE TELL US ABOUT BLACK PEARL GLOBAL INVESTMENTS.

Black Pearl Global Investments is an asset management firm, which is generally pretty scary to health care practitioners. But as former clinicians and health care providers, we keep delivery of quality care at the center of our practice. Our mission, really, is creating a healthy world.

BPGI now has six divisions, encompassing venture capital, private equity, lending, Black Pearl Africa, Black Pearl Jamaica, and health advisory.

Under the private equity arm is Black Pearl Vision, formerly Hydrogel Vision. It really comes down to this: reducing health care costs, improving health care outcomes, and reducing disparities.

Contact lenses should not be a luxury medical device, so how can we make them more affordable? If you are someone who might need vision correction, can we make it more affordable for you—not just in developing nations, but in the United States?

For example, how do I make sure African Americans, who are disproportionately affected with diabetic retinopathy and may need greater vision correction, can afford other options?

We are very different from the other financial companies and contact lens manufacturers that are currently out there.

TELL US ABOUT ANY NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN WHICH BPGI IS INVOLVED.

Access to quality care—that’s our number one priority.

[Access is] 1A, and 1B is broadening our reach. As a U.S.-based manufacturer, Black Pearl is global, and we intend to become more global. That means expanding our access to other developing nations, and we are looking at how we can do that in a thoughtful way.

The third priority is innovation. What’s the next frontier? I’m a nerd and a techie. What other pieces of technology could we layer onto this very sturdy base? Black Pearl Global now sees more than 500 inquiries about new technologies coming in every month, so there’s lots of innovative people and companies doing innovative things, and they want us to invest there.

Sometimes when you have new players that are from outside of the industry, you start to see things that people didn’t think were possible. And I’m looking forward to being a part of some of these new, innovative thoughts.

PLEASE SHARE YOUR VISION FOR THE EYECARE FIELD.

I wish I saw more people with good eye health. In five years, I hope to be able to say more people know whether they need vision correction. That’s not sexy, that’s not glamorous, that’s not innovative—it’s a very basic health question. I think that’s a short-term vision, and we’ll work very hard for that.

Further out, when I feel like I’ve got my feet under me, I would like to see the eradication of things like sun blindness. Recentering around health and protecting your eyes from the sun, can we take those steps to say, “OK, it’s great to be able to treat these very complex diseases, but if I can’t keep you from going blind because you live in a place with direct sun exposure, I’ll let somebody else tackle these other things and make very expensive contact lenses.”

There are millions of people who are going blind from something that we all could be solving very cheaply. The next three to seven years, that’s where we’ll be focused. Come check on me in a few years to see if we’ve solved those, and then maybe I’ll start working on some of those super sexy problems. CLS