The contact lens market is growing steadily, with an expected CAGR of 5.5% from 2023 to 2031.
This growth is primarily driven by innovations in smart contact lens technology, which are creating new business opportunities in the eyewear industry.
These emerging ventures will add new variations to the market and lead brands to their sustainability targets. On top of this, visual impairments continue to become more prevalent globally across age groups. A surge in the elderly market and younger groups that need visual aids will inevitably create demand and boost contact lens development over time.
Creating contact lenses
Around 45 million Americans use contact lenses today. Of course, these modern lenses are a far cry from the 1888 A.E. Fick creation that used heavier glass and covered the entire eye, sclera included. That may already be a distant enough memory, but the contact lens concept goes back to 1508 when Leonardo Da Vinci created sketches of domes filled with water to correct vision problems. While Da Vinci is often regarded for his paintings, he was also an engineer and theorist, truly invoking the scientific advancement that came with the Renaissance era. This level of creative engineering would continue to impact the evolution of the contact lens to the 21st century.
Today, contact lenses have different uses and variations in the market. You can get daily disposables, multifocal lenses, astigmatism-focused lenses, and purely cosmetic lenses, among others. Certain manufacturers even use HydraLuxe Technology, which uses a tear-infused design to keep your eyes lubricated when wearing the lenses consistently.
And while the general rule is that you need to remove your contact lenses every night, there are even silicone hydrogel lenses that now let you wear contacts up to 30 days straight. This is achieved by allowing oxygen from the eyelid’s blood vessels to your eyes. With enough oxygen permeating the lens, you can sleep with your lenses on without the risk of irritation.
It’s not just in terms of general use and comfort that have improved how contact lenses are created. There are now plenty of other useful features meant to target various eye-relate concerns. For starters, the telescopic contact lens is designed with miniature telescopes to aid older people suffering from age-related macular degeneration.
UV lenses have also become very popular, particularly as the world becomes exposed to higher levels of UVA and UVB rays. Although UV contact lenses aren’t clinically confirmed to reduce the risk of eye disorders, they effectively protect your eyes from aspects of solar radiation.
New innovations in the industry
The contact lens industry is already filled with groundbreaking solutions, but the best is yet to come. Manufacturers are actively developing advancements that will only serve to bolster demand for lenses in the future.
Japanese contact lens manufacturer Menicon is one of the leading brands in this effort. It is currently pursuing new developments using its NanoTerasu synchrotron radiation facility, which can generate light that is one billion times stronger than sunlight. The group aims to introduce more sustainable contact lenses using recycled materials through this research. Menicon also aims to create smart lenses with internal sensors, allowing wearers to view minimal augmented reality HUD elements.
In Canada, the University of Waterloo has also recently developed a new contact lens material that would allow wearers to recover from corneal abrasions faster. The lens itself administers antibiotics onto the eye as it is worn.
The vision is that smart contact lenses will take the forefront, introducing exciting new features while improving existing technologies. Biomimetic-engineered silicon hydrogel materials will likely play a massive role in allowing these electronic components to maintain optical properties, histocompatibility, and biocompatibility safely.
This innovation race has also led to more e-commerce startups banking on the online marketplace and creating new lenses. Research and conceptualization are critical factors in the success of startups in such a competitive industry, and there have already been some promising new entries in the field, such as BVS Sight, Mojo Vision, and Xpanceo. These startups are all developing smart contact lenses, but each has a niche with lens technology targets. For consumers, this is an excellent time to engage in products that could potentially improve the management and detection of different visual impairments.
