Optimed managing director Robert Sparkes

Australasian-based Optimed has partnered with Essilor Instruments to deliver diagnostic, refraction and finishing solution services across New Zealand and Australia.

A joint company statement released on 9 September announced, “Optimed will combine its expertise and service platform with Essilor’s resources to provide innovation to eye care professionals, help them improve efficiency in their practice and enhance their patients’ experience.”

Optimed managing director Robert Sparkes Essilor told NZ Optics, Essilor Instruments is the majority shareholder in the joint venture, in which the founding Optimed directors still hold ‘a significant share in Optimed and Optimed NZ’. He said, “We continue to operate under the same management team autonomously. We share the same parents, so to speak, so you can expect to see collaboration where it makes sense.”

Sparkes added, “Customers will essentially see no change to the way we service them but, with greater resources at hand, they will see an expansion of the scope and availability of instruments available along with the support mechanisms necessary to take care of these products.”

Based in Australia and New Zealand, Optimed began in 1988 as a wholesaler of ophthalmic diagnostic and therapeutic instruments as well as pharmaceuticals, servicing the ophthalmic market with laser technology. The company expanded its operations in 2000 to comprehensively service ophthalmologists, optometrists, orthoptists, ophthalmic nurses, optical dispensers and hospitals.

The news of the partnership was described by Essilor Instruments CEO Christophe Condat as, “in line with our global strategy to launch a more comprehensive product portfolio and to improve our service offer to eye care professionals in the world and especially in ANZ.”