Adjustable Spectacle Lens for Presbyopia

    In 1992 with two friends, Dr. Daniel Barnea and Shmuel Halevi, Eli Peli co-founded Visya Inc. to develop an adjustable spectacle lens for presbyopia. The technology was based on Barnea’s patented fixed volume technique. This idea revolutionized the concept of fluid filled lens and made it possible to achieve sufficient optical power change with reasonable levels of energy in preference to hundred years of prior art that used injection of fluid as the basic concept. With the help of a small business grant from the National Institute of Health they tried to implement the idea in a format that will be suitable to spectacle lens application. This proved to be very difficult (see the prototype developed under this SBIR grant). At the same time Dr. Stephen Kurtin of Lane Research was awarded a USA patent that with one simple stroke simplified the implementation of the fixed volume lens dramatically. His approach was superior and enabled him to produce a working, reasonably good looking, fixed volume prototype very soon. In the course of its development activity Lane Research licensed the Barnea patent from Visya. The technology has been developed both in Japan, and under the name Trufocals in the USA. It is now (2009) ready for market.

   The photo shows Eli with his TruFocals spectacles from above to illustrate the lever on top of the frame bridge that is used to adjust the spectacle correction for reading and distance as required.

Past Grant Support

NIH/R43-EY09789 (SBIR I)
A New Adjustable Spectacle Lens for Presbyopia
Awarded to Visya Inc (E Peli, co founder, Chief Scientist)

Publications

Barnea D. (Communicated by Dr. Eli Peli) (1992) Correction of presbyopia with a new adjustable spectacle lens. Reprint from Digest of Topical Meeting on Ophthalmic and Visual Optics (Optical Society of America, Washington, DC, 1992), Vol.1, pp. 94-96. [PDF 135 KB]

Peli E, Rabinovich J, Barnea D. (1992) A new deformable lens for presbyopia. Supplement to Optometry and Vision Science, Academy '92, 69:(12s) p. 115. [PDF 67 KB]