Allergan will hold a Special Meeting of Stockholders on December 18, 2014 to discuss the hostile takeover bid by Valeant and Pershing Square Capital.

 

The meeting was demanded by some shareholders, including Pershing Square, which holds 9.7% of Allergan’s capital. Shareholders will be asked whether they want to oust directors who oppose the merger with Valeant.

 

The Board of Directors continues to maintain that the offer greatly underestimates its real value. The company just posted the strongest quarterly sales in its history and plans to reduce its costs by approximately $475 M in 2015 compared to its previous strategic plan. It is predicting compound annual growth of earnings per share of more than 20% over the next five years.

 

In order to counter Pershing Square’s influence within its own ranks, Allergan filed a lawsuit against Pershing under the Federal Securities Act regarding the purchase of Allergan shares. This happened barely a few weeks before the company joined Valeant in the hostile takeover bid. If Allergan’s request for an injunction, filed in California, is accepted, Pershing Square will not be allowed to vote at the special meeting.

 

On another front, Allergan’s discussions surrounding the purchase of pharmaceutical company Salix seem to be at a standstill. By buying Salix, Allergan would increase its value to a level that would make a buyout by Valeant difficult.

 

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Sources:

http://agn.client.shareholder.com/releaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=867860

http://agn.client.shareholder.com/releaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=867446

http://eyewiretoday.com/view.asp?20140822-allergan_talks_to_buy_salix_in_defense_move_said_to_be_dormant

 

 

 

Tissot Medical Research and the University of Lausanne (EPFL) continue to improve their contact lens for the detection of glaucoma.

 

The Swiss researchers’ project is to develop a lens that is capable of measuring intraocular pressure continuously for 24 hours. This would correct the errors that arise from the current method, which can only measure pressure at a precise moment.

 

The lenses are composed of silicone and equipped with sensors that measure the variations in pressure with each blink of the eyes, using a bump that presses against the cornea when the eyelid closes. This causes the electrodes to come closer together. Small antennas attached to the patient’s glasses capture the information.

 

By measuring the eye’s resistance to the pressure from blinking, it is possible to collect valuable information about the patient’s intraocular pressure. “After 24 hours, ophthalmologists plug a USB key into the housing and analyze the results,” says the director of the Electronics and Signal Processing Laboratory at EPFL.

 

The smart lens could also help in adjusting the patient’s treatment by measuring the biomechanical properties of the cornea.

 

Although it is not yet on the market, this lens already has competition. Sensimed, a start-up also based at EPFL, has developed a different version based on a technology that analyzes the changes in the circumference of the cornea.

Sources:

http://actu.epfl.ch/news/une-lentille-de-contact-pour-depister-le-glaucome/

http://www.acuite.fr/articles.asp?REF=9909

 

Many people need corrective lenses to see an image or read a text on a screen. So what if we could correct the display instead of the viewer’s vision?

 

That’s what researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are working on. They’re developing computer algorithms to compensate for an individual’s visual impairment and produce a custom-made image for that person. “Instead of relying on optics to correct your vision, we use computation,” explained Fu-Chung Huang, a Berkeley researcher.

 

This approach could potentially help hundreds of millions of people who currently need corrective lenses to see their screens, but especially patients with high order aberrations that cannot be corrected with glasses or contact lenses.

 

In their prototype, the researchers inserted a printed pinhole screen sandwiched between two layers of clear plastic into an iPod display. The tiny pinholes were 75 micrometres each and spaced 390 micrometres apart. By adjusting the intensity of the light emanating from each pixel in each direction, the researchers were able to create an image corresponding to the user’s visual impairment.

 

“Our technique distorts the image such that, when the intended user looks at the screen, the image will appear sharp to that particular viewer. But if someone else were to look at the image, it would look bad,” said Brian Barsky, a Berkeley professor.

Source:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140729152921.htm

 

 

 

Scientists from the University of Iowa have created the most detailed molecular map to date of the human eye, by cataloguing more than 4,000 proteins in the choroid.

 

These proteins play an important role in maintaining vision, in a part of the eye associated with diseases that can lead to vision loss or blindness, such as age-related macular degeneration. By observing the varying quantities of proteins in the three areas of the choroid, the researchers believe that they can see which proteins may be associated with vision loss and with eye disease.

 

“This molecular map now gives us clues why certain areas of the choroid are more sensitive to certain diseases, as well as where to target therapies and why,” says Vinit Mahajan, a corresponding author on the paper, published in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology. “Before this, we just didn’t know what was where.”

 

For example, with the map, the researchers learned that the CFH protein is more abundant in the fovea. However, this protein helps prevent a molecular cascade of events that can lead to AMD. Monitoring CFH abundance in this area therefore becomes a good means of detecting the risks of AMD.

Sources:

http://archopht.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1889671

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140801125054.htm

 

The World Council of Optometry (WCO) launched two new membership categories at their most recent Governing Board meeting in Maputo, Mozambique.

 

The two new categories are “Individual” and “Corporate” membership. This will make the organization accessible to people who want to support their work.

 

Individual membership will be open to individual optometrists, vision scientists, faculty, researchers and eye care industry professionals. For $100 ($50 in developing countries), they can become members of the WCO.

 

The Corporate category is open to commercial organizations that are not otherwise eligible for Associate or Affiliate membership and have a recognized and approved business relationship with an Associate or Affiliate. The cost of membership for a year is $900.

 

Both Individual and Corporate members must endorse the WCO concept of optometry (http://worldoptometry.org/en/about-wco/who-is-an-optometrist/index.cfm).

 

“You do not have to be an optometrist to be interested in our mission which is to promote eye health and vision care as a human right through advocacy, education and public policy development,” says Canadian optometrist Susan Cooper, president of the WCO.

Source:

http://www.worldoptometry.org/en/news/index.cfm/WCO-new-membership-categories