STAAR Surgical Company (Monrovia, CA) released the Afinity Collamer Aspheric Single Piece New Technology IOL (NTIOL). The lens is delivered into the eye through a 2.2-mm microincision with STAAR's Nanopoint Injector System. The IOL's collamer material is composed of collagen, a UV-absorbing chromophore, and a poly(hydroxyethyl methacrylic) acid or poly(HEMA)-based copolymer.
Due to the lens' NTIOL status, which was granted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, ambulatory surgery centers will receive an additional $50 reimbursement for every Afinity Collamer Aspheric Single Piece IOL that is implanted.
The first shipments of the Collamer Single Piece Aspheric NTIOL will go to STAAR's Collamer Accommodating Study Team (CAST), which was formed in 2008 and is composed of nine ophthalmologists. The CAST group collaborated with the company's development team to evaluate the baseline accommodative ability and properties of the collamer lens technology. The CAST physician group will benchmark patient outcomes.
In other news, STAAR implemented a new pricing policy, which includes a $100 reduction in the list price of its toric IOLs.
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