Contact lens pioneer and serial entrepreneur
Ron Hamilton has notched up a string of
fresh successes for his latest venture Provis,
including a prestigious award and rapidly-rising
global sales.
Provis, which makes high-specification
daily wear disposable contact lenses, was
presented with the Sunday Times Microsoft
Tech Track 100 Award for Innovation for
their flagship product, the daysoft™
uv lens.
The daysoft™ uv product is the latest
innovative development by Hamilton, who
initially trained as an engineer and held
management roles at Honeywell, Kimberley
Clark, Thorn EMI and CooperVision before
setting up his first company.
It was while working at CooperVision, which
made cleaning solutions as well as lenses,
that Hamilton developed his original idea
for disposable lenses that wouldn’t
need cleaning, starting down a pioneering
path.
“I am very pleased to have led the
development of a contact lens modality which
is universally regarded as the safest form
of contact lens wear available and which
gives unique user comfort and convenience,”
Hamilton said.
Hamilton, Executive Chairman of Provis,
has had a long association with the team
at Scottish Equity Partners, which is an
investor in Provis. The SEP team backed
Hamilton’s first venture, Award, which
was set up in 1993 as the world’s
first company dedicated to making daily-disposable
contact lenses. Just three years later Award
achieved a multi-million pound sale to Bausch
& Lomb, the world’s biggest eyecare
specialist, generating a 10-fold return
on the investment.
At the end of Hamilton’s five year
non-compete agreement with Bausch &
Lomb, he launched his new venture, Provis,
in 2001. SEP invested an initial £1
million and in 2002 injected a further £2
million to fund additional production lines
at Provis’ manufacturing facility
in Hamilton International Technology Park.
SEP Managing Director Calum Paterson commented:
“Venture capital is all about backing
the right people and Ron Hamilton is a proven
entrepreneur with a great track record.
“Award was unquestionably one of
the most professionally-managed start-ups
we have been involved with, and in many
ways the market opportunity for Provis is
even more exciting.”
Today some 35% of contact lens wearers
in the UK use daily-disposables and the
figure is expected to rise further, mirroring
trends across Europe and in the United States.
Provis supplies tens of millions of lenses
per annum to optician outlets in 23 countries
including Germany, France, Italy, Scandinavia,
Israel, Egypt, Sri Lanka and Australia.
The company has delivered compound annual
sales growth of over 260% from 2001-2003,
securing tenth place in the Tech Track 100
list of the UK’s fastest-growing privately
owned technology companies.
One of Provis’ key strengths is the
company’s ability to produce very
high-quality comfortable lenses with a UV
filter and high water content at a very
low cost.
“The ingenuity is in the manufacturing
and distribution processes, not just the
lens - contact lenses are just small pieces
of plastic, albeit very clever little pieces,”
Hamilton said.
When Hamilton started out, a pair of soft
contact lenses cost £150 and required
cleaning solutions and insurance. Now, Provis’
daysoft™ uv lenses retail at just
under £1 per pair, marking a radical
change in the market.
Provis controls costs by increasingly taking
orders over the internet from 1,500 opticians
in the UK and international optical distributors,
making to order and dispatching within 24
hours.
As he builds his second eyecare venture,
Hamilton’s vision is crystal clear.
His rivals are multi-nationals - Bausch
& Lomb, Johnson & Johnson and Ciba
(a subsidiary of Novartis), but Hamilton
is undaunted:
“I did not set this up just as a
Scottish business or a UK business,”
he said. “This is a global business
and it will become the biggest provider
of one-day contact lenses in the world.”
