THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 9, 1996 TAG: 9609070409
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JEANNE MOONEY, SPECIAL TO BUSINESS WEEKLY
LENGTH: 207 lines
If John H. Keenan kept a chronicle of his company's rise, he'd have to begin at the bottom. It might read like this:
Day One, Dear Diary: A group of venture capitalists and I rescued a Norfolk contact lens manufacturer from bankruptcy today. Hello, Lombart Lenses Ltd.
Year Three, Dear Diary: Huzzahs, we're finally profitable! We're making our own brand of lens as well as cutting lenses for other companies. Gosh, I hope the investors are happy. They like to get in, get out and make a profit.
Year Seven, Dear Diary: We married off Lombart Lenses to a British biotechnology company. With their know-how and superior material and our FDA-approved lab to enter the U.S. market, we can launch a new soft contact lens. So long venture capitalists, hello Biocompatibles International, parent of the newly named, newly acquired company, Biocompatibles Eyecare Inc. Me? I'm its president and CEO.
Year Eight, Dear Diary: We've been luring managerial talent from the big leagues - Bausch & Lomb; Pilkington, Barnes, Hind; etc. They want to pioneer the new lens. They will. This summer (1995).
Year Nine, Dear Diary: Well, it's been nearly two years since the acquisition. We've tripled our work force, increased production six-fold, and installed state-of-the-art machinery. We've introduced Proclear, our new lens, and marketing says it should boost sales by $8 million this year (1996). And best yet, we own the frontier of biocompatible plastics. We're testing our material for use in lens implants while our sister divisions are exploring its use in catheterizations, angioplasty, wound care and even maritime shipping.
Biocompatibles' story is far from told. It is a small but growing company, ensconced at 1215 Boissevain Ave., Norfolk, that aspires to lead the industry and bring stealth technology to the marketplace.
This stealth is not about sleek, dark warplanes skunking radar detection. Its about Biocompatibles' inventive material, a plastic actually, which challenges the most sensitive radar: the human body's.
The material incorporates a synthetic molecule that duplicates the molecule found in human cell membranes responsible for the biocompatibility of living tissue. In other words, the material is designed for the body to treat as its own, and not reject as a foreign invader.
Biocompatibles calls the application of this material ``PC technology'' after the phosphorylcholine molecule it mimics.
``I think this company is really poised to be a major player in not only soft contacts but additionally with a lot of eye-care products,'' Keenan says. ``There's opportunity with PC technology in interocular lenses, kidney dialysis . . . You're almost limited by your own imagination.''
Says Roderick Bowers, president of Biocompatibles' technology and new business development, ``Our concept is to turn the technology to `PC Inside.' It's the Intel approach. Just as much as Intel markets the Pentium chip as a key component to the computer now, we believe that ocular compatibility is a key component in the design of refractive (lenses).''
Biocompatibles uses the PC technology in its pride and joy, a soft contact lens called Proclear, which it launched 14 months ago after receiving Food and Drug Administration approval. The lens is compatible with the eye, and not merely tolerated by it, the company says. The lens also resists dehydration and deposits, affording added comfort, Biocompatibles says.
And to think, Proclear was born on a beer mat. Bowers remembers that Friday brainstorm several years ago in a London pub when the topic turned to molecular structure and the beer glass coasters were plied into service as drawing boards. He explains:
``In the U.K. we like drinking beer. That warm flat stuff. I can't find it anywhere here. . . . I was sitting there with some friends of mine and we started doodling with Proclear and that's how it started.''
Warning: Do not try this sketch work at home. Bowers did his doctoral work on the ocular compatibility of soft contact lenses. He and his friends are well-credentialed drinking buddies. Scientists and stuff. For fun, they try to reinvent the contact lens industry.
Bowers believes they did, both theoretically and technologically. In his view, contact lens makers have tried to solve the limitations of contact lenses - such as dehydration, protein buildup and oxygen flow to the eye - by requiring patients to replace their lenses.
The more frequently the lenses are replaced, the paradigm goes, the less chance of problems.
Bowers' approach was to redesign the contact lens' material so it addresses the shortcomings.
``We, I think, have certainly introduced into the minds of the ODs (optometrists) and also, I think, into our competitors' minds that this really is the dawn of new materials,'' Bowers says. ``It's been a long time coming with contact lens materials.''
Since its debut, Proclear has attained a market share of 5 percent for all patient visits for planned-replacement lenses, says Michael Menard, Biocompatibles' director of marketing. Planned-replacement lenses are dispensed during 40 percent of all patient visits for contact lenses.
Biocompatibles does not retail Proclear; it sells only to licensed eye care practitioners. To date, the customer base approaches 3,000 practitioners. Proclear is sold in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, 14 European countries and Korea.
Biocompatibles recommends that patients replace their Proclear lenses approximately every six months. And because PC-containing Proclear lenses resist buildup, most wearers do not have to clean their lenses with enzymes, Menard says, saving $60 to $100 annually.
Proclear wearers can expect to spend $225 to $250 in the first year for the lenses and fittings, Menard says, but that cost varies according to each patient's need for professional eye care.
Kenneth A. Lebow, a Virginia Beach doctor of optometry and an associate professor of optometry and a clinical research consultant for the New England College of Optometry, helped test Proclear against two leading brands prior to and during Proclear's release for sale in the United States.
At the end of the study, participants were asked to choose between Proclear or the brand they wore before the study. ``The preferences were for Proclear .
The study, Lebow says, clearly demonstrated that Proclear did not lose water as much as the other tested lenses. ``This is a meaningful addition to what practitioners can offer the problem dry-eye patient,'' Lebow says.
Michael A. Ward, the director of contact lens services at Emory University in Atlanta and a contact lens specialist, also tried Proclear, but on a very small number of patients, ``maybe 10,'' he says, prior to its marketing release in the United States.
In that admittedly limited experience, Ward says he found the lenses' resistance to deposits to be ``not as good as what's on the market.'' And, he says, ``I don't find the comfort of the lens is any better.''
``It's not the panacea that it seems to be presented to be,'' Ward says of Proclear. ``It's a great theory. But it's not worked for me clinically. So I choose to use other lenses (on patients).''
Proclear's inventor, Bowers, says Proclear was not designed to be a panacea. ``Proclear was never designed to deal with people with severe ocular problems,'' which some of Ward's patients exhibit. ``It was designed for the broad spectrum, not the absolute extremes.''
Menard, Biocompatibles' marketing director, points out that the Proclear lenses Ward received were investigational devices, made prior to the inventory released for sale. And Charles W. Rogers, vice president of Biocompatibles' manufacturing, says, ``We were learning at the time. He (Ward) was helping us investigate a lens. That's why you do it.''
Optometrist Lebow says no lens is deposit-free. ``I have seen deposits on the (Proclear) lens,'' he says. But, he adds, it was not a major problem in the study he undertook.
By June 1997, Biocompatibles plans to triple to 15,000 square feet the size of its dry labs where it manufactures Proclear lenses, the maturer Lombart lines and lenses for other companies.
In all, the firm makes about 150,000 lenses a month, two-thirds of which are the Proclear brand. They float off the production line every 75 seconds, cut by state-of-the-art diamond-tool lathes. The machines whir 16 hours a day in a room where the temperature isn't allowed to fluctuate more than 2 degrees and the relative humidity doesn't change more than 2 percent.
Rogers smiles at the progress all around him. ``What Biocompatibles asked me to do when I joined the company was put in a world-class technology. This is it.''
``We can design a product and be manufacturing it tomorrow,'' Rogers says. Of course, regulatory approval would be needed. But, Rogers says, competitors would need at least three to six months to reset. ``We're on the leading edge.''
Biocompatibles also is testing PC-coated refractive implants, or lenses that go in the cornea to correct vision. Product approval alone may take 3 to 6 years, Bowers says.
``This really is stealth technology,'' Bowers says of the implants. They would ``fool'' the eye into believing the substance is its own.
Today, Biocompatibles begins its stealth technology applications with Proclear. Tomorrow, the firm and its parent company may coat interocular lenses, catheters, sutures, needles and a host of medical devices, lessening their impact on the body's equilibrium.
The PC technology also may be used to coat the bottom of ships' hulls, retarding the algae, barnacles and marine growth that drags on the ships' surfaces.
``When you have a technology which can go into so many different areas, the question is: Where do you focus?'' Bowers says. ``We focused and continue to focus in the eye care area.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color photo]
NEW FOCUS
LAWRENCE JACKSON
The Virginian-Pilot
LAWRENCE JACKSON
The Virginian-Pilot
Raquel Catbagan, right, does one last inspections of contact lenses
in their containers at the Biocompatibles plant in Norfolk before
they are sent to be sterilized and labeled.
A stock of lenses, inset, is ready to fill orders for the next two
months. Biocompatibles launched its Proclear soft contact lenses 14
months ago after receiving Food and Drug Administration approval.
Workers hands move over lenses at the Norfolk plant, right. Proclear
lenses use ``PC technology'' - named for the phosphorylcholine
molecule they mimic.
Reginald Soriano, far right, inspects the base curve of Proclear eye
contacts at the Norfolk plant.
Biocompatibles at a glance
Who: Biocompatibles Eyecare Inc., a biotechnology company at 1215
Boissevain Ave., Norfolk
What: It manufactures daily wear, extended wear, bifocal, soft
and hard contact lenses, to name a few. A year ago, it launched
Proclear, a daily wear, planned replacement soft contact lens. The
company says the lens resists dehydration and deposits and
represents a breakthrough in lens materials.
Work force: Approximately 215 people, up from the 60 people it
employed when Biocompatibles International plc acquired it almost
two years ago. And it's still hiring. Plans are to bring on six to
eight Ph.D.s with doctorates in life, material and polymer sciences,
and about 20 people with college and high school educations for work
in production.
Size: In its first full year of sales, Proclear is projected to
bring about $8 million. It has achieved a 5 percent market share of
all patient visits for planned-replacement lenses, the company says.
Planned-replacement lenses are dispensed during 40 percent of all
visits for contact lens fittings. by CNB