Tustin Firm’s Colorblindness Lenses OKd
Tustin-based ColorMax Technologies Inc. said Monday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved its new treatment for color vision deficiencies.
About 8% of men and 0.5% of women suffer from color deficiencies or colorblindness. The majority have trouble distinguishing shades of red and green.
Wearing glasses with ColorMax’s tinted lenses, patients can separate even subtle variations of color, company executives said.
“Think of it as an expansion of the rainbow,” said ColorMax Vice President John Jantzi, a Vancouver, Canada, optometrist who tested the lenses on more than 100 patients. “Patients tell me they didn’t realize a firetruck was one shade and an apple another.”
Earlier treatments for colorblindness, such as a red-tinted contact lens called the X-chrome, could not be adjusted for the degree or type of deficiency affecting a patient, said James Bailey, a professor at the Southern California College of Optometry in Fullerton who leads ColorMax’s scientific advisory board.
No previous treatment for color-vision deficiencies has won FDA approval, the company said.
Irvine resident Errol Higgins, a commercial photographer, said he has worked around his red-green deficiencies by using a computer that provides numeric value to colors. Now he is trying out glasses with ColorMax lenses.
“I’ve seen things I’ve never seen before,” he said. “Even the speedometer in my car used to blend into the background. Now it’s a glowing orange.”
ColorMax lenses come in 10 configurations. Each alters the way patients’ retinas are stimulated by light, enhancing their ability to distinguish color in the portion of the spectrum where they need it.
A privately held company, RGB Technologies Group of Tustin, worked to develop the corrective lenses for about a decade. Salt Lake City-based Renu-U International Inc. acquired RGB in June, based on the promise of its license to sell ColorMax products. The combined companies then formed ColorMax Technologies to market the lenses.
The company will manufacture the devices at its Tustin facility.
In the third quarter ended Sept. 30, the company reported a net loss of $858,766 and less than $10,000 in revenue.
With FDA approval in hand, however, the company projects sales of almost $3.2 million in the next year and revenue of $21.4 million in 2002, said Julie Kim, the company’s secretary/treasurer. About 12 million Americans and 250 million people worldwide have color vision deficiencies.
“We’re the first ones in, so it’s a great opportunity for us,” Kim said.
The lenses, which will cost $695 in adult frames and $495 in children’s glasses, will be sold through a network of about 200 optometrists ColorMax plans to establish in the next year. For now, seven U.S. optometrists and 21 Australian doctors offer them.
ColorMax stock rose $1, or 16%, to $7.13 a share Monday in trading over the counter.
