A Lanarkshire technology firm has won more backing from investors for an attempt to launch a new contact lens manufacturing business, which could involve a dogfight with other Scottish operations.
A Lanarkshire technology firm has won more backing from investors for an attempt to launch a new contact lens manufacturing business, which could involve a dogfight with other Scottish operations.
Ocutec has received a £775,000 package in a funding round led by the Dundee-based Discovery business angels syndicate and backed by the Scottish Co-investment Fund. Ocutec directors hope the funding will allow the firm to start mass production of lenses, a move which they believe could revolutionise the industry in 2010.
Based in Bellshill, Ocutec has developed a new class of thermoplastic hydrogel polymer which it claims allows much more oxygen through than existing products, offering a vastly superior "on-eye" performance for users than existing products.
Developed by Professor Neil Graham, emeritus professor of pure and applied chemistry at Strathclyde University, the lenses can be produced using standard compression or injection moulding techniques. The company says this will make them much cheaper and easier to produce than standard lenses. Typically, contact lenses are produced in a multi-stage process that involves forming polymer between moulds.
Wade Tipton, a veteran of the contact lens business who recently joined Ocutec as managing director, said: "The business has a unique opportunity to make a huge difference to the contact lens industry".
The money raised in the latest round should fund the work needed to ensure Ocutec's products receive regulatory clearance for testing on humans.
Tipton said he hoped to complete that process in 2009 and to go into mass production in 2010.
Total employee numbers could then increase to more than 100. This is the kind of boost to employment that local politicians would relish, but any move into production could spark unease at other operations nearby.
Ron Hamilton, the Scottish "inventorpreneur" who netted around £16m by selling his Award disposable lens operation to sector giant Bausch & Lomb in 1996, now runs the Daysoft contact lens business based in Blantyre. Daysoft plans to revolutionise the business by selling direct to consumers on the internet.
Last year Hamilton told The Herald that the cost of producing the lenses was "a matter of pennies".
Bausch & Lomb has a production facility in Livingston.
Directors of Ocutec are not concerned by the prospect of competition with established players. Dr Roderick Byers, who helped to grow Biocompatibles Eyecare from a start-up to a FTSE-250 company, said Ocutec executives were well aware of the strategy and marketing policies followed by existing players.
Discovery Investment Fund and the Scottish Co-investment Fund invested £325,000 in the latest round, with unidentified private backers investing £125,000.
Last February Ocutec raised £200,000 from Discovery and £82,000 in public sector funds. In December the firm was awarded £232,000 SMART research and development funding by the Scottish Government.
