Innovative contacts unveiled

DRAPER — The package is thinner than a dime and clearly labeled with an "R" or "L." Its creators bill it as the solution to most of the complaints that consumers have about the soft contacts they wear. It will even reduce the risk of infection, they say. And that's just the packaging innovation for the single-use, completely disposable contact lenses.

ClearLab, a wholly owned subsidiary of 1-800 CONTACTS, unveiled both the AquaSoft Singles lens and its wrapping for Utah media at the company's offices Monday. A more international preview took place earlier in New York.

When you gently pull up the corner on the package, it opens easily, revealing a soft, squishy lens that is not positioned like it's in a bowl, but rather springs up to form a small dome that can be pinched between fingers and placed directly in the eye.

No lens solution. No storage before the next use, because there won't be a next use. And the packages are so flat that four of them laid in a rectangle are the size of a credit card, according to Allen Hwang, vice president of strategic marketing for ClearLab.

The design is a direct response to complaints that consumers have with soft lenses, he said. Current packaging tells the prescription, but not whether a lens should be placed in the left or the right eye. Users grouse about how hard it is to open the typical blister packaging without accidentally sloshing the lens out. Because the lenses are thin and clear, floating in solution, wearers have to "fish" around to get them out, potentially rubbing germs on the inside of a lens that will soon have full contact with the eye and may transmit infection or simply irritate the eye.

Contact lens users also complain that they can't always tell if they've flipped the lens inside out. Such inversion can be painful and doesn't do wonders for vision, either. And clearing and storing are flat-out inconvenient, Hwang said.

According to ClearLab, 97.5 percent of contact-lens users improperly clean their contact cases. And sometimes, when they do, they use solutions that may actually damage or alter the lenses.

Some research indicates that as many as 71 percent of lenses are contaminated with bacteria or other problems that can injure the eye.

That's where not touching the inside of the lens comes in, said chief technical officer Steve Newman, who was present on speaker phone from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Granted, fingers still touch the outside of the lenses. But the eye can cleanse the outside of the lens — using tears, for instance, to wash away germs. The inside, on the other hand, has a captive, petri-dish-like audience of germs.