Polymacon

Polymacon is a non-proprietary (i.e., generic) term for a hydrophilic polymer of 2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate (HEMA) cross-linked with ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (62%) and water (38%).[1] It is used in the manufacture of soft contact lenses, and is considered a low hydration hydrogel of nonionic polymer.[2]

Otto Wichterle - Inventor of polymacon, the material for the first soft contact lenses

The first idea for contact lenses came from early sketches from Leonardo Da Vinci in the early 1500's. Over 400 years later, the first contact lenses were created in 1936 by William Feinbloom, an American optometrist[3]. It wasn't until 1961 when Otto Wichterle, a Czechoslovakian scientist, created the first contact lens using polymacon, a soft, hydrophilic plastic. Otto Wichterle was a dean of the Institute for Chemical Technology in Prague, where he worked with polymers[4]. Wichterle began using spin casting and centrifugal forces to create HEMA (polymacon) into soft contact lenses. In 1966, the company Bausch and Lomb company purchased the rights to the HEMA contact lenses for $3 million dollars[5].

Today, over 45 million people benefit from the use of contact lenses, 90% of which use these soft lenses first created by Wichterle[6]. Previously, lathe cutting was used to create these hydrogels, which proved to be costly and had low reproducibility[6]. Wichterle's use of spin casting helped grow the industry of contact lenses. Currently, the most common use of manufacturing is soft molding, which mix inert water substitute is mixed with lenses monomers before polymerization to speed up production processes.