California based EPGL Medical Sciences says it holds what it believes to be the most potentially valuable patents pending in the field of smart contact lenses and is challenging Google to provide an update on the progress it has made.
The move appears to be part of a fund raising exercise by the company. "We are actively seeking potential partners in what could become a very significant revenue space in the next several years; the 'augmented reality' or 'bionic vision' revolution is beginning," claimed Dr David Markus, the company's vice president of BioMems. "We believe EPGL will be a major player in this space going forward."
EPGL says it has several patents pending relating to smart contact lenses, including energy harvesting, autofocus and smart lens case technologies. It also claims to have developed ways that enable microelectronics to be placed into silicone hydrogel contact lenses for mass production, without changing the manufacturing process 'dramatically'.
"We have nothing but respect for [Google], but we believe our little six cent per share company is likely beating a $460billion giant in this coming revolution," said EPGL president Michael Hayes. "We're throwing down this public challenge to see if it has truly accomplished what we have."
Google announced last year a contact lens (pictured) that acts as a glucose sensor and entered a deal with Swiss based pharmaceutical company Novartis to commercialise this approach. However, the big market is likely to be for so called autofocus contact lenses. According to Novartis' CEO Joseph Jimenez, this market could be worth up to $50bn in the next ten years.
Author
Graham Pitcher
Source: www.newelectronics.co.uk