Johnson & Johnson - Vision Care, Inc

VISTAKON^® builds a rich heritage by continually advancing contact lens technology in response to doctor and patient desires.
What ultimately became known as ACUVUE^® Brand Contact Lenses were first manufactured at Frontier Contact Lens Company in Buffalo, New York, in the 1950s. As the company grew, it opened a branch in Jacksonville, Florida, and was headed by Seymour Marco, an optometrist with significant experience fitting what were then hard contact lenses. After a few years, Marco bought out Frontier’s owners and grew the business dramatically.

During the 1970s, Marco developed a new hydrogel material, etafilcon A, and Frontier began making soft contact lenses. In 1981, his health failing, Marco sold Frontier to Johnson & Johnson.

When Johnson & Johnson bought Frontier, which it renamed VISTAKON^®, it acquired an exceedingly manual manufacturing process. That changed, however, with VISTAKON^® implementing a major overhaul in its production lines, facilities and staff. This new method, Stabilized Soft Molding, enabled VISTAKON^® to go from making 100,000 contact lenses per day to 1 million lenses per day and facilitated the United States launch of ACUVUE^®, the first seven-day extended wear disposable contact lens, in 1987.

In 1995, VISTAKON^® took the contact of frequent replacement one step further with the first daily disposable lens, 1·DAY ACUVUE^®. VISTAKON^® also created the first disposable presbyopic contact lens, ACUVUE^® BIFOCAL. In 1998, as part of the company’s commitment to comprehensive eye health, VISTAKON^® began incorporating ultraviolet (UV) protection in its contact lenses. Today, all ACUVUE^® Brand Contact Lenses offer Class 1 or Class 2 UV blocking, a rarity in soft contact lenses.

Introduced by VISTAKON^® in 2003, ACUVUE^® ADVANCE^® with HYDRACLEAR^® contained a new silicone hydrogel material (galyfilcon A) that incorporated a moisture-rich wetting agent without surface treatments. Patients noticed — within just four months, ACUVUE^® ADVANCE^® became the leading silicone hydrogel contact lens in the United States and the second most prescribed lens overall. New, second-generation materials such as senofilicon A, found in ACUVUE^® OASYS^® Brand Contact Lenses, have helped provide patients with even greater comfort.

Today, VISTAKON^® manufactures millions of ACUVUE^® Brand Contact Lenses daily. The production process has been miniaturized and nearly fully automated, with advanced robotic technologies that enable more lenses to be produced more quickly.

VISTAKON^® continues to discover new contact lens technologies and create leading-edge products to fulfill the needs of doctors and patients. Among them are ACUVUE^® ADVANCE^® for ASTIGMATISM, which provide crisp, steady vision for astigmatic patients; and 1•DAY ACUVUE^® MOIST^® for patients who must deal with such conditions as solution hypersensitivity and discomfort due to ocular allergies.