First-Ever Digital Global Varilux Summit Exploring New Horizons in Presbyopia

Last month, Essilor hosted a first-of-its-kind global virtual event for eye care professionals (ECPs), the Global Varilux® Summit. This unique event featured top experts in presbyopic health who helped an audience of over 20,000 industry professionals from around the world explore new horizons in presbyopia and understand the key benefits of the world’s number one recommended progressive lens brand: Varilux.

Didn’t catch the Summit live? Watch a replay of the plenary session featuring global leaders in presbyopic health.

The Global Varilux Summit streamed live on Nov. 10 from the Essilor Vision Care Center,  a new and state-of-the-art virtual event platform, in 11 languages to reach a wide audience of eye care professionals (ECPs) from 78 countries, with online engagement reaching over 25,000 views. An additional summit session was broadcast on Nov. 24 and 25 for opticians and ophthalmologists in Brazil, attracting more than 1,000 participants.  

Co-hosted by Agnès Dewidehem, Senior Vice President of global Essilor brands, and renowned expert Dr. Howard Purcell, Optometrist, FAAO, and President & CEO of the New England College of Optometry, the Global Varilux Summit featured leading global experts, clinicians, researchers, marketers and professors who shared their knowledge and experience on the topic of presbyopia.

Among the experts who presented during the broadcast was Prof. Pete S. Kollbaum, OD, PhD, FAAO, FBCLA, and Associate Dean for Research and Director of the Borish Center for Ophthalmic Research at Indiana University. “The Global Varilux Summit on presbyopia was a great opportunity to ‘get together’ with colleagues from around the world to talk about the new science behind presbyopia and new technology surrounding its correction. It was fantastic to have a large group of scientists and clinicians all ‘in the same room’ to discuss this important topic together, and especially helpful to have direct access to the scientists at Essilor making these products; to hear their experiences and insight on these new technologies, and how these technologies are intended to help improve and individualized patient care,” said Prof. Kollbaum.

Special guest Norbert Gorny, COO at Essilor, shared thoughts on the future of innovation at EssilorLuxottica, ending with the following message to ECPs: “Our eyes allow us to capture more than 70% of the information our brain computes. The environment that we live in and the conditions we work in continuously change, and lenses and technologies need to adapt to this as well. That is why Varilux first generation lenses look very different from what we have today. Satisfaction can only be created by a close collaboration between EssilorLuxottica and all the ECPs that we serve around the world – this collaboration is an enormous mutual benefit. Innovation will always be the number one priority at EssilorLuxottica, and therefore you can expect the next generation of Varilux to deliver what is needed as technical improvements for coping with the vision challenges of modern life lead to the ultimate personalization for making progressive lenses fit everyone's vision needs. There is much more to come so let us continue [our] partnership, which has been so successful in the past and will be even more successful moving forward together.”

Stay tuned for more details on future events hosted by the Essilor Vision Care Center. In the meantime, we wish you and your practice a joyful holiday season and successful 2022.