Bausch + Lomb kicked off its 2026 Vision Care Summit last month, during which over 100 eyecare providers (ECPs) gathered in Denver, Colorado, for a weekend to dive into insights on clinical practice and patient care.
Among the topics on the agenda: B+L’s lineup of contact lens (CL) solutions, advancements in presbyopia management, daily disposable and frequent replacement lenses, addressing CL discomfort and dryness, as well as other lens innovations.
First, let’s talk about this meeting.
As its second meeting in vision care for B+L, the summit was hosted by its Global Medical & Scientific Affairs and U.S. Vision Care teams on April 18.
According to Brett Sarnoff, vice president (VP) and general manager, U.S. Vision Care, the event offered a chance for B+L to not only learn and connect with customers, but also “show how we continue to support clinical practice … and the patients they serve on a daily basis.”
- “This is really demonstrating the commitment to B+L around customer centricity, serving them and their needs, their practices, and learning from them on how we can be better partners,” added Mohamed Yassine, MD, VP, Global Medical & Scientific Affairs.:
Also take note: This event followed B+L’s first-ever U.S. Consumer Summit meeting, held just a few weeks earlier in Tampa, Florida. Check out our recaps from that summit here and here.
So who did attendees hear from?
With opening remarks made by Dr. Yassine and Sarnoff, the program’s faculty included:
- Joseph Allen, OD, FAAO, Dipl ABO
- Kriti Bhagat, OD, FAAO
- Mile Brujic, OD, FAAO
- Mark Eltis, OD, FAAO, Dipl ABO
- Kerry Giedd, OD, MS, FAAO
- James Hoffman, OD, FAAO
- Karen Hoffman, OD, FSLS
- Cecelia Koetting, OD, FAAO, Dipl ABO
- Jacob Lang, OD, FAAO
- Julie Poteet, OD, MS, CNS, FOWNS
- Gina Wesley, OD, MS, FAAO
- Daniel Hook, PhD
Now to the actual summit—what should we know?
The jam-packed, one-day scientific meeting began bright and early with a welcome by Drs. Yassine and Brujic, before faculty presented three plenary sessions, participated in a panel discussion (the topic: questions patients are asking about CLs today), and broke out into six topic-based sessions.
- Among the topics: presbyopia, astigmatism, frequent replacement lenses and lens care, dry eye in CL wearers, specialty lenses, and CL material innovations.
But for the sake of brevity (and sticking with our namesake), we’ll give you just a few overarching takeaways and themes from the summit.
Sounds like a plan. First up: let’s talk contact lenses.
In Changing Practices and New Opportunities, Gina Wesley, OD, MS, FAAO, in practice at Complete Eye Care in Medina, Minnesota, identified the significant—and often missed—growth areas available for clinical practices, particularly in offering personalized vision correction options such as CLs.
Based on 2023 consumer survey data, nearly half (47.8%) of eyeglass-only wearers have shown interest in CLs—translating to a large market opportunity and significant room to grow CL adoption among these patients.
- The bottom line: Behavior changes are integral to a practice’s growth.
So what are the takeaways?
- CL discussions should be a permanent part of every eye exam, particularly for existing eyeglass-only wearers and presbyopes.
- Of those roughly 48% of eyeglass-only patients interested in CLs, only 42% have reported ever being recommended CLs by their eyecare provider (ECP)—and most won’t initiate a conversation about this option on their own.
- CLs should be positioned as a lifestyle option (and not a replacement for eyeglasses).
- In practice: ECPs may consider reframing the conversation by recommending CLs for convenience or social / active use and glasses for backup / specific tasks.
- Early CL support can determine patients’ long-term success and retention.
- Case in point: While 26% of new CL wearers drop out within the first year, retention can be improved with education, follow-up, personalization, and staff involvement (from technicians to opticians and the front desk).
- In practice: The first 60 days of a patients’ CL wear are critical—and ECPs should plan accordingly.
Were any specific lens brands mentioned?
While B+L offers an extensive CL portfolio—including the Biotrue ONEday and ULTRA Monthly lenses—its newest brand stood out at this summit: the INFUSE daily disposable lenses.
INFUSE lenses are designed for moist, flexible, and breathable all-day comfort by helping to minimize lens dryness via a next-generation material “infused” with:
- ProBalance Technology: a proprietary blend of ingredients infused into the lens in order to support comfort through ocular surface homeostasis and aid in minimizing lens dryness
- Next-gen material for a moist and comfortable lens fit
See below for what Dr. Wesley had to say about this lens’s superior ability to provide patients with daily hydration and comfort (and a patient success story).
Learn more about INFUSE lenses—including the multifocal (MF) silicone hydrogel (SiHy) launched in 2023 and the equivalent for Astigmatism in 2024.
And speaking of that multifocal option …
Jacob Lang, OD, FAAO, of Associated Eye Care in Stillwater, Minnesota, spoke about his clinical experience fitting the INFUSE MF SiHy lens on his patients, noting its ability to provide more moisture than other brands to address the onset of dry eye at the same time as presbyopia.
And as a bonus: He also shared his own first-hand experience with the lens.
Sticking with this MF focus: James Hoffman, OD, FAAO, of Orange Park Eye Center in Orange Park, Florida, noted the difficult nature of prescribing MF lenses.
“They don’t always perform the way you’d expect,” he said. But that changed with the INFUSE lens.
- “It’s a straightforward, streamlined fitting with two adds that address all the needs that my patients require," he said.
Based on his patients’ experiences, Dr. Hoffman said their intermediate vision is immediately restored: “They now have the confidence that their vision has three distinct areas they can see instead of just the monovision’s far and near.”
Talk more about combatting the CL dryness issue …
Cecelia Koetting, OD, FAAO, assistant professor, ophthalmology, at the University of Colorado Anschutz, led that discussion during her presentation on Sustaining Success with Contact Lens Wear – Addressing Dryness.
In context: With an estimated 150 million CL wearers across the globe, ocular discomfort and dryness (occurring with tear film disruption) are among the leading causes behind CL dropout.
- And important to note: Up to 74% of dropout patients could (successfully, we might add) resume CL wear if their issues can be addressed.
And the takeaways?
- Prioritize diagnosing and managing (or referring for) ocular surface disease (OSD) to improve comfort and CL retention.
- Adopt a multimodal, proactive treatment approach by intervening early and layering solutions to prevent symptoms from escalating.
- In practice: Combine three key management strategies:
- Over-the-counter (OTC) products: drops containing effective ingredients like lubricants and osmoprotectants
- Prescription therapies: anti-inflammatory and anti-evaporative drops
- Lifestyle and nutrition changes: micronutrients via dietary supplements
- In practice: Combine three key management strategies:
- Offer patient guidance to improve adherence and long-term CL success.
- In clinical practice, ECPs should:
- Educate patients and initiate OTC use
- Tailor care to patients’ individual risk factors (think: digital device usage, age, and environment)
- Provide personalized, patient-centered strategies
- In clinical practice, ECPs should:
Circle back to those product recommendations — any specifics?
Dr. Koetting highlighted a few B+L OTC products for CL wearers to consider:
- Blink NutriTears, a daily nutritional supplement designed to target dry eye symptoms and promote healthy tear production.
- LUMIFY Preservative-Free redness reliever eye drops for patients seeking a new option for their aesthetic needs (see here for details)
Related: See here for more on Dr. Koetting’s OTC recommendations for ocular disease treatment.
And on the prescription side?
- MIEBO (perfluorohexyloctane ophthalmic solution) for dry eye disease (DED)
- XIIDRA (lifitegrast ophthalmic solution) 5% for DED (particularly CL wearers)
How about specialty lens options?
As Drs. Karen Hoffman, OD, FSLS, of Orange Park Eye Center in Orange Park, Florida, and Joseph Allen, OD, FAAO, Dipl ABO, of Grove Eye Care in Virginia, presented, B+L actually offers quite the specialty vision product portfolio spanning multiple lens categories:
- Scleral lenses
- Orthokeratology (ortho-k)
- The product: ARISE (a cloud-based fitting system for customized ortho-k lens design)
- Custom soft lenses
- The product: Revive
- Keratoconus soft lenses
- The product: NovaKone
- Gas permeable lenses
- The product: ASANA
- Prosthetic / tinted lenses
- The product: Alden Optical (transparent enhancer and standard / prosthetic tints)
The general idea with these offerings: For clinicians to enhance their practice’s custom lens-wearing experience by improving clinical outcomes, increasing fitting efficiency, and expanding their practice’s adoption of specialty lenses.
What were some other topics of discussion?
Dr. Allen took a step back from the clinical talks to also share his tried-and-true social media strategies for how ECPs can strategically build their own clinical brand.
Based on his eight-step process, here are our three key takeaways:
- An ECP’s online presence is an extension of their clinical reputation. Social media shouldn’t be viewed as just a marketing tool, but as though each post is a public-facing patient interaction
- In clinical practice:
- Stick to more evidence-based, general educational content
- Reduce liability by avoiding patient-specific advice
- Build trust via consistency and professionalism
- In clinical practice:
- Identify a professional niche before delivering a targeted, specific message. The more targeted the focus, the easier it’ll be to attract the right patients.
- In clinical practice:
- Define brand goals and desired reputation
- Focus on a clinical niche (specialty, such as dry eye, myopia, specialty lenses)
- Understand the audience and what they care about
- In clinical practice:
- Develop content, pick your platforms, and implement a repeatable system.
- In clinical practice:
- Select a social media platform
- Utilize built-in writing and artificial intelligence (AI) video tools such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini (for strategy outlining and editable copy writing)
- Implement automatic scheduling for consistency
- In clinical practice:
Alrighty, now to a common theme of this meeting.
Kriti Bhagat, OD, in practice at Eyediology Vision in Providence, Rhode Island, noted one: the customization component that comes with treating patients—and how B+L’s product innovations come into play.
And while her trust in B+L’s products is largely rooted in factors such as clinical research outcomes, clinician feedback, and her own real-world use, “my patient feedback is the most important to me,” she said.
What else stood out?
Three words: technology, innovation, and comfort.
Attendee Adam Young, OD, in practice at First Class Eye Care in Duluth, Georgia, noted that out of all the different lens options on the market, B+L’s products target clarity of vision, comfort, and ensuring patients are seeing their best.
His personal product callouts: INFUSE and B+L ULTRA.
- “As a clinician, it’s my job to make sure patients are smiling and happy,” Dr. Young said. “But I want to take it a step above to make sure they’re over-delivered in terms of how they see the world.”
Go on …
Mile Brujic, OD, FAAO, of Premier Vision Group in Bowling Green, Ohio, added to this, emphasizing that when it comes to B+L’s CL technologies, two things stand out:
- Comfort is always king
- The science behind the lens optics
With comfort: He noted that, even with the best optics and designs— “if a patient can’t wear the lens, it doesn’t matter.”
- “B+L is obsessive about identifying the needs of the patient and matching against those needs with the most comfortable materials.”
And when it comes to the science: With B+L’s status as an optical company, “they really take that understanding of optics and put that level of science into their lenses.”
Dr. Brujic added: “It’s those two critical pieces that really differentiate CLs over the competition and other options available,”
Any last thoughts?
“Oftentimes when companies produce products and technologies, they have to tell us (ECPs) what we need to do to get it into the right patient hands,” Dr. Brujic said.
But through extensive research and an intent to meet the needs of comfort for patients, he added that B+L knows where clinicians' patients are because “they actually met us at the intersection with these technologies.”