Dr. Cristina Schnider Discusses Acuvue Vita

This week’s guest is Dr. Cristina Schnider, the Director of Global Professional Affairs at Johnson and Johnson Vision Care. She spoke with us about the success of the new Acuvue Vita lens and what makes it different than anything in their product pipeline. Johnson and Johnson Vision Care’s research showed significant numbers of monthly contact lens wearers can’t comfortably wear their lenses for the entire month, but very few complain at the exam for fear they will be fit into something significantly more expensive or taken out of contact lenses all together. While daily lens wearers are growing rapidly, monthly contact lens wearers still make up the majority of the contact lens wearing population, and their goal was to try to create the most comfortable monthly lens to date with Acuvue Vita.

What makes this lens different from others?  Made from a brand new silicone hydrogel material called senofilcon C, Acuvue Vita contains 30% more polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) than the popular 2 week disposal Acuvue Oasys. How does a contact lens stay hydrated and comfortable all day long? That’s the job of PVP. This molecule binds to both the lipid and the aqueous layer of our tear film to help the contact lens incorporate into our normal tear film matrix. Many other monthly contact lenses are designed with coatings to block tear film lipids from adhering to the surface of the eye; Acuvue Vita doesn’t block lipids, but instead integrates the lipid tear film layer into the lens itself so that it doesn’t build up on the surface. The concept is that by integrating with your tear film, there will be less friction as your eyelid blinks over top of the contact lens throughout the day, better vision as your contact lens stays clean of debris and build-up, and more comfortable because the lens feels less like something in your eye and more like a layer of your own natural tear film.