Feb. 25--Patients seeking to zap their nearsightedness or farsightedness
with lasers may see a drop in the cost of the surgery because of competition
among laser equipment makers, the head of Laser Vision Centers Inc. said
Thursday.
"We've seen pricing of this procedure trending down in the last six
months," said Jack Klobnak, chairman of Laser Vision, which offers the use of
laser eye surgery equipment to doctors in 44 states.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved Bausch & Lomb
Inc.'s Technolas 217 Excimer Laser System. Bausch & Lomb is the world's
market leader for equipment used to treat nearsightedness and farsightedness,
but this particular device is new to the United States.
The approval means that "B&L will offer a competing laser to Visx,"
Klobnak explained. Visx Inc. had been Laser Vision's only source for the
expensive equipment, which costs $400,000 to $525,000 a unit.
Laser Vision, based in St. Louis, has 71 lasers around the country. In
the quarter that ended Jan. 31, doctors treated 26,600 cases in Laser Vision
centers.
The B&L approval, coupled with cuts in the royalty fees charged by Visx
and its competitors, should at least bring down the cost to doctors, Klobnak
said. Whether that translates into a cost break for patients remains to be
seen, he said.
"The laser manufacturers' research shows a clear relationship between
volume and price," Klobnak said. "Over the next year, the prices will come
down, and the volumes of surgery will go up."
The average price for laser surgery to correct vision runs around $2,000
in St. Louis, Klobnak said. "Over time, we'll see that price come down to the
$1,500 range."
That is already happening on the West Coast, he said, because of
reductions in equipment royalty fees.
Visx recently cut its royalty fee for each procedure to $100 from $250.
Another manufacturer, Summit Technologies of Waltham, Mass., followed suit,
adding that it would also give a break for volume.
That was welcome news to Laser Vision, which has about 9.3 percent of
the total U.S. laser surgery market with 22 percent of the market of
large-volume corporate clinic sites, according to David Harmon. Harmon heads
a market research firm, Market Scope, which tracks the refractive surgery
industry.
Analysts predict that up to 1.7 million Americans will have laser
surgery this year, up from about 900,000 in 1999.
Laser eye surgery is rarely paid for by insurance because it isn't
considered medically necessary.
In the surgery, a beam of light is used as a scalpel to make the cornea
slightly flatter and to allow light to focus on the image-sensing retina. The
laser removes minute layers of tissue with a dose of "cold" ultraviolet
energy.
