Bright Future
Saturday January 22 2011 | 01:59 PM

Local manufacturer Lenstec Barbados has its eyes on a ten per cent share of the growing United States market for intraocular lenses.

In fact, projections for growth are so good for the US, as well as the domestic and other international markets that the Christ Church company has projections this year for US $21million in sales.

President and CEO, John Clough told Barbados TODAY, “I think that this year [2010] we will have done gross sales of about US $13 million and I think that in 2011 we will probably be up to US $21 million and I think that in 2012 we should hit US $30 million.”

These projection, he noted, stemmed from expected expansion into the US market, for which the company only received FDA approval around May last year.

Lenstec set up operations here as a sister company to Lenstec Florida  in 1995 with four employees, but now employs close to 160. It manufactures a special ocular lens that is inserted into the eye and has helped with the ability, particularly of cataract patients, to see again.

Clough added as well that with a new product that he had designed called the pre-loaded injector system, they were also expecting the demand to be very high among doctors, surgeons and hospitals in the future.

He said that the company was one of only six that had been granted this approval for the US market, to which exports should begin in the early part of this year.

“Currently there are 3.4 million intraocular lenses sold in the US and with the baby boom generation now headed to 65 [years], the demographics of the situation and the market suggests that by 2020 the intraocular lens usage would have doubled.

“We have only been selling in the US since May and we are currently selling at an annualised rate of around three per cent. It is our ambition to get to around a 10 per cent market share in the United States.”

Previously, the company’s biggest market share was throughout Europe, but with the economic crisis although they have continued to do well, the markets there have fallen a bit.

“We sell through distributors. Distributors cannot borrow money from banks anymore to buy inventory, so that’s affected our sales, but fortunately we do well in the US. Our US parent company is actually set up as a sales and distribution centre for Lenstec Barbados. So we actually buy the lens from Lenstec Barbados and then we turn around and sell them in the US.”

This expected development, the CEO continued, meant that in another two years the huge operation here could require expansion.

“So as far as this facility is concerned, I would think that within another two years or so I am going to be asking Richard Edghill for some more property. I can see us having the room here for another two years or so. I think beyond that we may be looking to get another building.

“By then I would think that the employees, we have about 150 to 160 people now, ... will be up to 250 by the middle of 2012,” he said, adding that the company was here for the long haul.