EuroEyes International has been recognized for its pioneering work by winning the Zeiss Award for the 10th consecutive year. The independent company, founded in Hamburg in 1993, was honored for performing the highest number of trifocal lens implantations in clinics around the world. The milestone award was presented in London in September.
The company specializes in cataract surgery, presbyopia correction, and intraocular lens procedures. Over the years, its team of laser eye surgeons has completed hundreds of thousands of operations. The group’s network currently includes laser eye centres or clinics in Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, following a just concluded deal to buy the world number two in the field.
EuroEyes entered the mainland China vision correction market as a pioneering foreign entrant by opening its first clinic in Shanghai in 2012. Its network in China now includes clinics in Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. To support domestic and regional expansion, the company completed a successful initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong in 2019 (stock code 1846.hk).
Dr Jørn Slot Jørgensen, the founder, chief executive, and medical director of EuroEyes, stated that growth in China has been driven by rising disposable incomes and the large demographic dealing with myopia or presbyopia. He noted that while overall consumer confidence may be down slightly at the moment, people in the higher income category are still willing and able to invest in their own long-term health and well-being.
Jørgensen, a Danish-born trained ophthalmologist who still performs more than 1.000 individual operations a year, began his career with outpatient work in Hamburg. He became an early adopter of laser surgery because it was fast, safe, and eliminated hospital stays that previously lasted up to six or seven days. Jørgensen said, “When I saw no one else was doing this, I went to Berlin, Munich and found partners in Copenhagen.” He noted that because so many people in China started finding the company on the internet and coming to Germany for treatment, it was an obvious move to open a first clinic in Shanghai.
