News ReviewCompleted Merger Combines CIBA's and WJ's Products, and Drops WJ Name Gene Therapy Researchers Gain Ground in Retinitis Pigmentosa Pilot Program Takes Eye Care to the Cradle Former Innotech Customers Sue J&J Over Excalibur Lens-Casting Units IN THE NEWS |
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The name Wesley Jessen will be no more
as CIBA Vision moves to integrate the just-acquired company into its corporate
fold. The combined company will operate under the CIBA Vision flag, but
maintain all of each company's existing trademarks, including WJ's FreshLook
and CIBA's Focus brands. The merger between the two was consummated after months of deals, near deals and at least one broken deal. WJ is now an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Novartis, CIBA Vision's parent. That makes Novartis the world's second-largest contact lens company. CIBA and WJ had 1999 pro-forma sales of $1.4 billion and 8,900 employees. The honeymoon involves a team from both companies looking at best practices, with a goal to complete their work January 1. Until then, it's business as usual, says CIBA Vision CEO Glen Bradley, Ph.D. The saga began in March, when WJ and Ocular Sciences agreed to merge. Bausch & Lomb made its own offer, then launched a hostile takeover bid when WJ rejected its overtures. CIBA Vision stepped up in May to acquire WJ for $38.50 a share, or about $785 million. WJ jilted Ocular Sciences, and stuck with CIBA through several extensions of the tender offer. Changes on the way include:
The combined company would have a majority share of the $150 million U.S. cosmetic lens market. To date, Mr. Bradley says, the Federal Trade Commission has not required the company to divest any parts of this business. Finally, the combined company will have a more geographic sales distribution. WJ had a higher percentage of its sales in the United States, while CIBA Vision had a higher percentage overseas. top Gene Therapy Researchers Gain Ground in Retinitis Pigmentosa Gene therapy researchers have found a potential treatment to slow photoreceptor loss in retinitis pigmentosa, and it shows promise that it may be effective even after many photoreceptors are destroyed. They published their findings in the October 10 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers of this study hailed from Universities of California San Francisco and Berkeley, and the University of Florida. Previously, the scientists raised rats with the genetic defect of retinitis pigmentosa. Animals with retinitis pigmentosa, including humans, have a mutated gene that destroys photoreceptor cells. The researchers developed ribozymes that target the mutated gene and prevent it from damaging the photoreceptors. The treatment slowed photoreceptor cell damage for at least 3 months in very young rats. Most recently, the scientists administered the treatment in somewhat older rats, and the same amount of photoreceptor cells survived. They also found that the treatment markedly slowed degeneration for at least eight months-maybe longer. The researchers concluded that this long-term gene transfer therapy is highly effective, even after significant cell loss. That's important because many patients aren't aware they have retinitis pigmentosa until some damage is already done. Meanwhile, researchers at Duke University Medical Center have used pigs with retinitis pigmentosa to determine how the death of rod cells leads to the death of cone cells. In people with RP, the rods begin to die by apoptosis, which somehow affects the cone cells. "The million-dollar question in retinitis pigmentosa has always been, 'How does a mutation in a rod-specific gene lead to the death of genetically normal cone cells,'" says lead researcher Fulton Wong, Ph.D., research director of the Duke University Eye Center. The researchers, who published their findings in the November issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, focused on nerve cells connected to rods that relay visual information. As the rods die, the nerve cells connected to them continue to attempt to communicate with other nerve cells, and begin to connect to cone cells. This new connection does two things: It prolongs vision, but it also relays inappropriate signals to the cone cells, which leads to their eventual death. "In human terms, these connections bestow an extra decade or so of good, though progressively worsening, vision," Dr. Wong says. He notes that later stages of the disease process might be better targets for intervention than individual gene mutations. Pilot Program Takes Eye Care to the Cradle Over the past month, pediatricians and family practitioners have been getting letters alerting them to what one optometric leader calls "the March of Dimes" of infant eye care: Operation Bright Start (OBS).OBS' goal is to see that each of the 3.2 million babies born each year in the United States gets an eye and vision assessment from an optometrist. "If you look at the fact that virtually none of them is having more than a pediatric evaluation, albeit a good thing to do, it is not as definitive as a comprehensive eye assessment that an optometrist can perform," says OBS chairman W. David Sullins Jr., O.D., a former AOA president and now private practitioner in Athens, Tenn. OBS is a program of the American Foundation for Vision Awareness (AFVA), and it's now recruiting optometrists. A panel of 42 pediatric optometry experts has drafted a 15-page outline of what pediatric assessments and patient management should entail. And, OBS has developed a Web site at www.operationbrightstart.com. There's a pilot program under way in Tennessee, where 250 optometrists have signed on to provide no-fee assessments to infants up to 1-year-old. "Our expectation is to have OBS optometry within an hour of every infant in Tennessee," Dr. Sullins says. Dr. Sullins cites several statistics that point out the need for such infant care:
In his practice alone, Dr. Sullins has performed eye and vision assessments on some 400 infants since June 1999. "It's absolutely astounding what it has done for the infant population in our community," he says. Among the ocular problems he's detected are Coats' disease and retinoblastoma. "The wonderful thing about OBS and particularly a nursery visit is, you catch these problems in time to give the children more definitive and refractive care, and reduce morbidity," Dr. Sullins says. Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Roslyn, are honorary co-chairs of OBS. For more information, call AFVA at 1-800-927-2382, or e-mail OBSHQ@aol.com. Former Innotech Customers Sue J&J Over Excalibur Lens-Casting Units When Johnson & Johnson Vision Care announced nearly two years ago it was shutting down its Innotech in-office lens-casting business, hundreds of eye care practitioners were left wondering how they would recoup their investments in the Excalibur casting systems they had purchased from Innotech. Now nine of those practitioners have filed lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, claiming the Excalibur systems they own are now useless because certain essential parts are unavailable. The suits, filed in Roanoke, Va., allege breach of contract, unjust enrichment, false advertising and fraud; at least two of the plaintiffs are asking for more than $1.4 million each, the Roanoke Times reports. The suits were filed the same day J&J's Spectacle Lens Group entered the market with its first spectacle lens, a new progressive called Definity 2. Executives from the Spectacle Lens Group have said they built on the proprietary SurfaceCasting technology that was the heart of the Excalibur system to produce Definity 2 lenses. The Spectacle Lens Group is not named in the suits. When Innotech launched the Excalibur system in 1993, it told customers it would help market and maintain the machines, as well as sell the consumables and machine parts needed to make the lenses. For some companies, the parts cost more than the $15,000-$20,000 machines, some of the lawsuits allege. For example, LaFreniere Eye Care of Somersworth, N.H., said in its suit that it paid more than $21,000 for the molds, plates and other parts it needed. However, Innotech had promised that in about 7-10 years the machines would pay for themselves, the lawsuits say. Johnson & Johnson acquired Innotech in February 1997 for about $135 million. Innotech officials had told Excalibur customers that J&J would continue to invest in the casting machines, having already sold more than 900 of them. In March 1999, three months after announcing it would exit the in-office lens-casting business, J&J stopped selling parts and consumables for the Excalibur system. It set up a reimbursement system for Excalibur owners, allowing those who had recently purchased the system to receive pro-rated payments up to the system's full price. Those who had owned it for three years or more were offered $2,000. When some customers complained that the offer wasn't enough, J&J negotiated with Optical Dynamics to sell more consumables to Excalibur users; J&J later gave customers about $1,500 worth of optical tools and credits. A J&J spokesperson said the company declined to comment on the pending litigation. The Roanoke Circuit Court has scheduled a hearing this month to review the lawsuits. -Andrew Karp, reprinted with permission from Vision Monday.
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| © Review of Optometry OnLine November 15, 2000 |
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