Neurolens's impactful role in headache reduction with CEO Davis Corley

In the digital age, the effects of eye strain are more prevalent than ever. A new study shows that those who experience headaches due to eye strain can find relief in using Neurolens. The company's CEO, Davis Corley, sat down with Optometry Times to detail the findings of the study and how Neurolens implementation can impact patients' quality of life.

Video transcript

Editor's note - This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Emily Kaiser Maharjan:

Hi, everyone, I'm here with Davis Corley, CEO of Neurolens to talk about a recently published study about headache reduction with the use of Neurolens. Thanks for joining us, Davis. It's really great to have you.

Davis Corley:

Well, thank you for having me. We're always excited to talk about what we're learning, trying to drive more evidence based medicine into the eyewear market, and very excited about the recently published results with our randomized controlled trial on headaches.

Kaiser Maharjan:

Absolutely. So first, can you tell us a little bit about the study? I understand that it demonstrated a statistically significant level of change on the headache impact test.

Corley:

And that's correct. And one thing that we were looking to achieve as we looked at just this study in general is we wanted to test a hypothesis is the annual eye exam. There are 100 million patients coming in for annual exams, patients coming in with a moderate to severe level of headache. Would those patients see a real benefit from having Neurolens's contoured prism design, versus a standard prescription without contour prism? That was the whole premise of the study and we set out to find that in 10 different locations. And what we found was that not only were we statistically significant, we were going to outperform the control lens every single time, but we had 5 points of reduction, when it comes to the headache impact test, or the HIT-6. The HIT-6 is not very well known in the optometry space. It's more used in neurology with pharmacological interventions for headache. But what 5 points gets you in forms of the HIT-6 is very valuable to the patient. It can mean I'm having very, very severe headaches where I almost need to go to the doctor or even the ER right now, all the way down to, hey, you've got a little bit of a headache, but it's not taking you away from social activities, or work, or friends and family at all. So really material outcome for the profession, optical technology, and optometrists.

Kaiser Maharjan:

That's fascinating. Could you share a little bit about how Neurolens's prism technology works?

Corley:

Absolutely. So the key feature in the lens design that makes you Neurolens unique and proprietary is contoured prism. So we're all very familiar with progressive additional lenses and PALs and progressives, that changes the amount of add power from distance to near as the patient goes down to the reading zone. What contoured prism does is we induce more base in prism, as the patient's eyes moved from distance to the near zone. It will incorporate more base in prism at near where 90% of patients need it most while they're working on their computer, laptops, or on their phones.

Kaiser Maharjan:

That's super interesting. Thanks for sharing. What kind of patients would best benefit from Neurolens? And, you know, are there any kind of headaches that don't respond well?

Corley:

So headaches are multifactorial, as everyone knows. We would classify these, and I should say "we," I use the royal "we." Our neurology advisors would classify these as visually induced headaches, largely onset by a detectable measurable eye misalignment. And so that's actually one of the core components to how we brought this to optometry is, we brought a measurement device that will check a patient's distance eye alignment and their near eye alignment. And it goes through a [variety of] examinations, including many of the binocular vision tests, all into one device. It gives the optometrists a numerical value to then prescribe Neurolens. The testing that we perform is very simple and it gives you a chance to provide an elegant solution to the patient for all their issues from distance to near.

So when we think about types of headaches that walk into the optometry practice, if these headaches could be exacerbated, or even made worse, by having to overcome an eye misalignment, we think, let's take care of that eye misalignment and see how much of the headache falls away with that. It may not eliminate everything. Not everything is going to be eye misalignment-related. But if we get rid of that, it seems that we're having a substantial impact in how that headache is being taken care of.

Kaiser Maharjan:

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, a little bit of headache relief can really go a long way in the ways of patient satisfaction and quality of life, all of that kind of stuff. So still very helpful.

Corley:

That's the entire intent. We're looking for ways to make that outcome in a patient life experience significantly better.

Kaiser Maharjan:

Absolutely. Is there anything else that you'd like to mention that we haven't touched on?

Corley:

I would say that one of the core components that Neurolens is endeavoring to do: we believe that bring evidence based medicine, just like what we mentioned, this randomized, controlled trial. It is a study design that is unlike any that's been done in optical technology. We're showing that not only we are the best in class option, especially with eyewear at the annual eye exam, we're going to produce a meaningful result for that patient with 5 full points of reduction on the HIT scale, which is very meaningful. So when we think about what the optometry profession can do, this gives the chance to not only expand the benefits and the promise that you can make to your patient at the annual eye exam, but it really transforms the elevated patient care at that level. So we think that this is a great thing for the profession, a great thing for optometry, and we're excited to continue to build upon this evidence based medicine category.

Kaiser Maharjan:

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for sharing and thanks for taking the time to chat today. It's been really fascinating to hear more about Neurolens and its recent publication. Congratulations on that. It's really exciting stuff and thanks again.

Corley:

Thank you.