Jennifer Lambert.

ROCHESTER, N.Y.—CooperVision has announced a series of investments designed to reinforce its worldwide leadership in myopia management, including actions to further bolster commercial infrastructure, pipeline growth, clinical study sponsorship and advocacy support. The company announced the appointment of Jennifer Lambert to the newly created role of vice president, myopia management and cornea care. Lambert has spent the past four years as senior director of global myopia management for CooperVision. In addition to Lambert's role, the company said it is adding managerial roles specific to customer engagement and new product market development, collectively designed to transform the myopia category for long-term success.

"For more than a decade, CooperVision has been changing people’s lives through myopia management, spearheading how the category has evolved in partnership with top eyecare professionals, educators and industry associations," said Debbie Olive, CooperVision’s chief commercial officer. "While our range of optical interventions is unrivaled, we know there is considerable work still to be done by removing barriers, accelerating clinical adoption and affirming myopia management as a standard of care for countless children."
 
In parallel, CooperVision has announced a series of new research and development projects relating to myopia’s onset and progression such as investigations of novel optical designs, novel treatments and foundational concepts. This includes a multi-site clinical study for a next-generation soft contact lens for myopia control, which builds on the MiSight 1 day contact lens, the first and only FDA-approved soft contact lens proven to help slow the progression of myopia in children aged 8 to 12 years of age at the initiation of treatment.
 
After publishing data from a series of CooperVision's soft contact lens studies among children with MiSight 1 day, the company said it is now broadening its efforts to explore the economics of myopia and its treatment. Collaborating with Manchester University’s School of Optometry and Centre for Health Economics, the company said it has funded a Ph.D. position for the program, in partnership with professor Philip Morgan and senior lecturer Dr. Carole Maldonado-Codina. Preliminary reporting is expected to begin next year.
 
CooperVision has also sustained financial support for myopia management advocacy initiatives such as its partnership with the World Council of Optometry to develop and advance myopia management as the standard of care; its myopia collective program with the American Optometric Association and myopia management education for the academic community via the International Association of Contact Lens Educators (IACLE). It also sponsors ongoing efforts from the International Myopia Institute, the World Society of Paediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (WSPOS) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness.
 
“We are fortunate to act from positions of strength in our science, our portfolio and our customer relationships­­—all of which point us toward continuing to extend our voice and expand our leadership," said Lambert. "Not only are a generation of children today depending on the work we are doing in partnership with the optometry and ophthalmology professions, but also millions of children in the decades ahead whose lives may be changed for the better through our innovation and efforts."