Staar Surgical (NSDQ:STAA) said today it inked a multi-year strategic cooperation deal with Japan’s Kobe Kanagawa Eye Clinic.
Through the newly inked deal, Kobe Kanagawa Eye Clinics in Tokyo and Osaka will offer Staar’s EVO Visian ICL lenses to patients seeking alternatives to glasses or contact lenses through refractive eye treatments.
“We are very excited that our clinic has become a strategic partner with Staar Surgical company and expect to introduce the ICL to many more patients. Our clinic has performed almost 500,000 refractive surgery procedures and has implanted the most ICL lenses in Japan for the past eight years in a row. As a result of this agreement we intend to broaden our promotion of the ICL as a solution that provides excellent visual results to our patients,” Kobe Kanagawa Eye Clinic chair Dr. Junki Sawai said in a prepared statement.
“Kobe Kanagawa Eye Clinic is one of the largest refractive eye surgery providers in Japan, an increasingly important market for our ICL lenses, and we are thrilled to announce this strategic cooperation agreement. Dr. Yoshihiro Kitazawa, chief medical director of the clinic, was a recipient of our ICL Ambassador Award in 2017 and holds Staar’s ‘Expert Instructor’ training and education designation. The clinic has treated many celebrity patients. We look forward to working even more closely with the Kobe Kanagawa team to achieve excellent vision for patients with the EVO Visian ICL family of lenses,” prez & CEO Caren Mason said in a press release.
Earlier this month, Staar Surgical said that the FDA lifted a 2014 warning letter issued over design and quality issues at a plant in California.