Poly(ethylene glycol) is a well known polymer widely used as a pharmaceutical excipient for ointments and skin care products.

Attached to enzymes it prolongs their life in the bloodstream and allows spectacular improvements to patients with enzyme deficiency conditions. It is generally recognized as having a high level of biocompatibility.

Professor Neil Graham, Ocutec's Scientific Director, has done much to develop and bring cross linked hydrogels based on this class of material to multimillion dollar commercial product status with UK and US product licenses. It has been used as the basis of the design of Ocutec's thermoplastic hydrogel having the ability to provide a high quality contact lens but not requiring a “free radical” polymerization mechanism which tends to cause both oxidative instability and residual monomer. Instead an entirely different polymerisation mechanism is used with a new molecular assembly technique.

This new technique from Ocutec allows the design of a new and very broad class of hydrogel polymers and so allows enormous scope for the exploration and design of optimized materials for contact lens applications. 

Ocutec’s hydrogel materials have improved physical properties compared with current soft contact lens hydrogel materials. They are demonstrably much stronger, have improved tear resistance and are not brittle when dried out.

Ocutec’s polymers do NOT rely on silicones to achieve high gas transport, nor surface coatings to maintain high surface wettability.

Importantly the oxygen permeability exhibited by the Ocutec contact lens technology is significantly greater than existing hydrogel lenses of equivalent water content. This improves wearability and comfort levels for the contact lens user.

Ocutec’s materials therefore have the potential to deliver superior clinical effectiveness compared to other polymers used in vision correction.