Justin Cooper , 2025-05-05 18:02:00
Key takeaways:
- Optometrists rated refractive error as the top factor warranting myopia control, not “gold standard” axial length.
- “Enormous profitability” is expected from upcoming myopia control products.
PARK CITY, Utah — Many eye care professionals have knowledge gaps that pose “a significant risk” to the adoption of myopia management practices, according to a speaker at Eyecelerator.
These misunderstandings are increasingly important to rectify due to the rising burden of myopia as well as the “enormous profitability” of products that could soon be approved to manage it, Rupe Hansra, OD, vice president, professional affairs, Topcon Healthcare, said.
!["[Doctors are] focused clinically on high refractive error and large myopic shifts ... but by then it's already too late," Rupe Hansra, OD, said.](https://www.healio.com/~/media/slack-news/optometry/misc/infographics/2025/pcon0525eye_hansra_graphic_01_web.jpg?w=800)
“[Doctors are] focused clinically on high refractive error and large myopic shifts … but by then it’s already too late,” Hansra said. Instead, providers should focus “on the gold standard, which is axial length outside of age-based norms.”
He cited 2022 survey data from the AOA Health Policy Institute indicating that optometrists rated refractive error as the most important risk factor warranting myopia management, while axial length was only fifth most important.
“We need to move [doctors] away from ‘myopia is a benign, refractive condition, and it’s absolutely normal’ to ‘myopia is a disease state, and any amount of myopia is abnormal,’” Hansra said. “We need to move them away from this perceived burden of selling and provide them the tools, resources and support for their purpose, which is protecting children’s sight from adult-onset, sight-threatening disease.”
The FDA has granted breakthrough device designation to two spectacle lenses for myopia control, Essilor Stellest lenses and SightGlass Vision lenses with diffusion optics technology. Citing an estimate that the global market for myopia control lenses could total $3.63 billion by 2030, Hansra explained what optometrists have to gain by optimizing myopia management.
“Think about it this way: You’re taking your least profitable customer segment — kids, single vision, two pair for $49, two pair for $99 — and you’re putting them into the premium price point for a progressive lens, which is about $300,” he said. “They come back year after year after year until the age of 18, so you’ve got this built-in retention network already in place.”
Appropriate care for these young patients could translate into their family members also becoming patients, Hansra said.
“We know that prevalence increases with income levels, so these patients in these families make great customers due to their purchasing power,” he said. “Myopic environments, not genetics, create myopic households, so there’s an opportunity to capture the entire family. There’s a consumer insight that says I trusted you with my child’s eyes, and you did a great job. Now I trust you with the entire family.”
Sources/Disclosures
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Hansra R. The myopia market as we see it. Presented at: Eyecelerator; May 2, 2025; Park City, Utah.
Disclosures:
Hansra reports being vice president, professional affairs, Topcon Healthcare.
