What would you say to better than 20/20 vision, without having to worry about glasses or contacts—ever? Now what would you say to having a lens implanted in your eye?
Dr. Garth Webb, a Canadian optometrist, and founder and CEO of Ocumetics Technology Corp., thinks he can do away not only with corrective lens, but also with cataracts. He and his team have developed the Ocumetic Bionic Lens, which they claim can correct vision three times better than 20/20. The lens is implanted in an 8-minute out-patient procedure.
The Bionic Lens still has to go through animal testing, then testing on “blind human eyes” before Ocumetics pursues getting regulatory approval first in Canada and then in other countries.
Getting something surgically stuck in your eye might sound a little queasy-making, but more than 3 million people undergo cataract surgery in the U.S. every year, a similar procedure to that of implanting the Bionic Lens. Cataracts have long been an expected and mostly unavoidable side effect of living long enough. The Bionic Lens might put a stop to that, too. Cataracts are a clouding of the eye’s natural lens due to aging. With the Bionic Lens in place early enough, no cataracts; it doesn’t age like natural lenses do.
If all goes well, the Bionic Lens will mean that we will all see our best, lifelong.
