Cataracts affect 50% of the population over 65 years, and cataract surgery has 28 million procedures a year. In cataract surgery, the natural lens is replaced by an artificial intraocular lens, and these lenses have increasingly sophisticated designs, returning not only the transparency of the natural lens but also optimizing its optical quality.

Scientists at the Institute of Optics (IO_CSIC) have designed an intraocular lens that increases the focus range of conventional monofocal aspherical lenses, maintaining optimal optical quality for far and intermediate distances. The refractive design avoids halos and other artifacts present in diffractive lenses, producing a natural vision at various distances. The technology, patented by the CSIC, has been licensed to the Belgian company PhysIOL, who, in collaboration with the researchers of the Laboratory of Visual and Biophotonics Optics, has proceeded to its industrialization.




The first patients have been implanted with this lens this summer, in Spain and the Czech Republic. The lens will be launched worldwide at the European Cataract and Refractive Surgery Congress to be held in Paris in September, and to the media at an event at the Eiffel Tower on September 15.