“The eye care environment is incredibly healthy”

For Chirag Amin, Johnson & Johnson has been “home” for nearly 19 years. Having begun his career with the group in the UK in sales, Amin stepped across to management and marketing roles within the MedTech sector. This saw him move to roles in businesses based in Asia Pacific – first in Singapore, and most recently in Japan.

This year, Amin moved back to the UK to take up the position of general manager J&J Vision Care UK and Ireland.

“Coming back to the UK has been incredibly exciting – plugging myself back into what is a fantastic environment,” he said, explaining: “While I’ve come from MedTech, within this, each business is its own niche, specialties, customers, and nuances that make it unique, dynamic, and challenging.”

“Having conversations with optometrists and eye care practitioners about what they are seeing; the opportunities as well as the challenges, will be the foundation of how I approach moving into this space,” he added.

Johnson & Johnson Vision Care

Chirag Amin

A positive picture

OT met with Amin to hear his thoughts on the eye care market in the UK, his key areas of focus, and plans for the year ahead.

He said: “In the last five months, I have been having conversations with optometrists, business leaders, and store directors and the eye care environment is incredibly healthy.”

The eye care sector is expected to see growth of nearly 10% over the next five years, with more than half a billion pounds worth of growth, he said.

“This is an opportunity as well as a challenge, around patient demographics, demands, expectations of technology, and how that fits into lifestyles,” he said.

Shifting lifestyles

Changing patient demand is one area that Amin’s team are focused on keeping on top of, sharing: “That translates directly to what optometrists are hearing and what technology we need to address those changes in demand.”

“Thinking about the societal changes we’ve seen, certainly post-pandemic, lifestyles have shifted to be more screen-based. It is integrated into almost all parts of society, from schooling, to work, and engaging with friends,” he said.

The demand that this change in lifestyle makes on patients’ feelings of comfort with contact lenses requires a different technology base.

“We want to minimise the difference patients feel between putting a fresh lens in and the end of the day. Our Acuvue Oasys Max technology is about building comfort into the day.” he said.

A more gradual change in patient demand is also underway, with the needs of an ageing society.

Amin said: “The expectation from consumers is different. There is no longer a willingness to accept the situation. I think patients have an expectation of what their lifestyles should be like and they want to maintain that high quality lifestyle.”

Awareness of the options

Amin described two major groups of contact lens wearers: “Patients who are aware of contact lenses and perhaps have been in them for a while, and those who are trying them for the first time. The key thread between those groups is awareness.”

A challenge in improving awareness of contact lens options amongst patients is that they may make assumptions, Amin said.

“Sometimes they don’t move forward with a conversation with an eye care professional because they have determined that there is only one way for this to go, and so they reach for a pair of spectacles,” he said.

He added: “Our challenge as an industry, from an eye care professional and a company perspective, is to make sure that we are giving all the information necessary to allow patients to make informed decisions.”

Amin noted that there can be apathy from patients, or a reluctance to discuss potential issues out of a concern that they may not be able to stay in their contact lenses: “There is an element of silence and endurance that a patient might be coming in with.”

“There is a greater solve required from partnership with industry to help patients open up about the challenges they are facing in a constructive way that makes them feel like there is a place they can go,” he shared.

Informed choice is crucial. Amin noted: “It’s a health service, so patients need to feel comfortable that they are receiving a balanced viewpoint on what options are available to them.”

“Then it’s about making sure they have the tools or guidance to be able to make informed choices,” he added.

Meeting patient requirements

Discussing the needs of specific groups of patients, Amin recognised the drop-off in contact lens wearing that can be observed as patients reach presbyopic ages.

“There is a lack of awareness that contact lens technologies have evolved so much that multifocal contact lenses are part of the experience now,” he said. “With our Acuvue Oasys Max multifocal contact lens, the uniqueness of a patient’s eye can be accommodated through our pupil optimised design.”

Identifying further areas of focus, Amin said: “I think myopia is certainly a significant core of evolving demand in patients. Our communities agree that demand is much higher than it has been in the past. It is critical for us to look at the horizon to consider the demographic changes we’re seeing coming through.”

This is something that the industry as a whole needs to “shine a spotlight on,” he said, adding: “when we think about the next 10 to 15 years, this is likely to be an area of very high demand for innovation in society.”

Johnson & Johnson is innovating in this area, Amin shared. He explained: “Whilst we are building out our models for the UK, we already have a product in market for some areas, where we are learning and able to refine our approach.”

Astigmatism continues to be a central focus for Johnson & Johnson’s specialty lenses, including integrating new innovations into the portfolio of lenses for patients with astigmatism.

With these lenses, it is important to recognise the active lifestyles of patients, and Acuvue’s eyelid-stabilised design means that the lens re-centres itself every time the patient blinks.

Johnson & Johnson continues to invest a significant amount of research and development into emerging challenges and patient demands. Amin said: “Life moves on. The world moves on. Demands change and what is true today won’t be true for next year, or the next 10 or 20 years.”

Building forward

Sharing plans for his first year in-post, Amin said: “I am looking at three areas to consider how they translate into the way we work: consistency, quality, and innovation.”

“A foundation of what we do has got to be building on the legacy of what we’ve been doing so well over the years, and that is the consistency part,” he said, adding: “The second is ensuring we retain the quality we’ve built in the marketplace and reinforcing the fact that there is quality in everything we do, and that the innovations we bring to the market are stacked with the latest technologies a consumer may need.”

He added: “The third is not to rest on our laurels. What are we introducing in the future to meet changes in demands?”

Amin shared that he is excited about research and development he sees when he “peeks behind the curtain at Johnson & Johnson.”

For now though, while patients still struggle with the demands of lifestyle or presbyopic changes despite technologies available to address those challenges, such as the Acuvue Oasys Max portfolio, he said, “the team is focused on increasing awareness and the reach of the portfolio.”

Amin shared his appreciation for ECPs and the “consistent energy they put in towards improving the quality of lives of patients.”

“Awareness of options, and informed choice, matters, and we want to partner with ECPs and with our retailers to ensure that we’re providing the tools to help them with those conversations,” he said.