Industry Overview    
  It has been estimated that at least 10 million people worldwide suffer from cornea blindness in both eyes. Many parts of the world do not have access to cornea donor tissue and therefore at the present time only about 100,000 cornea transplantation procedures are performed annually. This means that only about 1% of the cornea blind population in the world can be treated in a given year. The annual expenditures on this procedure worldwide currently is about 1 billion dollars with a significant opportunity for growth.  
Announcement
We will be exhibiting at booth number 3101 at the American Academy of Ophthalmology in Orlando October 22 to 25. We look forward to seeing you there!

News
We have received our license to sell the EndoInjector in Canada. Orders will be taken at ASCRS or by calling our office at 408-752-0850

KeraMed Inc. receives a grant under the U.S. Qualified Therapeutic Discovery Project Program
Drs. John Kanellopoulos and Jose Vargas successfully perform first micro-incision artificial cornea implantations with KeraKlear.
 
 
     
  Even in the United States where corneal tissue is relatively plentiful, cornea transplantation has many complications which make this treatment less than ideal, especially when compared to other modern eye surgeries such as LASIK and cataract surgery. For the typical LASIK and cataract surgery patient, the procedure will only last about 20 minutes and improvement in vision can be expected by the next day with a full recovery usually within a month. In contrast, corneal transplantation takes about 1 to 2 hours to perform and has a typical recovery time of about one year. Even when the transplant remains clear many patients are left with high astigmatism which makes the use of glasses or contact lenses difficult or impossible. Moreover, the failure rate of corneal transplantation is high with approximately 30% of corneal transplant grafts failing within 5 years. For patients that have already failed a graft once, the chance of a successful second graft is only about 50%.  
     
  Because of the problems with cornea transplantation attempts have been made to develop artificial corneas. The two commercially available artificial corneas, the Boston Keratoprosthesis and the Alphacor require large incisions to implant (16 to 25 mm) and because of these large incisions have severe complications associated with these implants including bleeding, infection, glaucoma and extrusion of the implants. These surgeries also typically require longer surgical times and are technically more challenging for the surgeon. As a result of these significant complications and the more complex surgical procedure, cornea transplant surgeons currently reserve artificial corneas for only the sickest eyes which have already failed transplants several times.  
     
  The KeraKlear artificial cornea addresses the current deficits in the treatment of cornea blindness by providing a treatment method that uses an incision that is 1/7th of that used for cornea transplantation. Because of the small incision both the surgery and recovery are made much faster. Typical surgical time for this procedure is only about 15 to 20 minutes. In the patients that have been treated so far all have had immediate improvement in their vision. We expect that the availability of the KeraKlear worldwide will make it an attractive alternative to cornea transplantation around the world.