Alcon has acquired Australian company Cylite and its Hyperparallel Optical Coherence Tomography (HP-OCT) technology.
A statement announcing the January 2025 deal said: “We are thrilled that the global leader in eyecare sees the immense potential of our cutting-edge technology for whole-eye OCT imaging and measurement diagnostics.”
Cylite was founded in 2013 in Melbourne with the backing of four prominent Australian scientists – Dr Steve Frisken, Mr Grant Frisken, Mr Trevor Anderson, and Dr Simon Poole – drawn from the fields of photonics, optics, instrumentation, and software development.
It was thought to be the only Australian company working in the ophthalmic diagnostic OCT space, an area traditionally dominated by the USA, Germany, and Japan.
Cylite has been an Australian manufacturing success story, with the company able to develop, scale and commercialise its highly specialised medical technology in-house at its Melbourne factory, under Ms Kylee Hall who took over from Dr Steve Frisken as CEO in April 2022.
While OCT is mostly perceived as a retinal imaging system, the Cylite HP-OCT’s greatest initial strength has been in the front of eye where the company says it creates true volumetric, or 3D, images of intricate anterior segment structures in a single snapshot. It has retinal capability too.
Scans are acquired at industry-leading rates of more than 300,000 A-scans per second. This means it can capture a full biometry scan in seconds, enabling accurate, motion- artefact-free measurements of all ocular surfaces.
Users can slice and cut the scan in any direction, X, Y or Z axis – all without any gaps, holes or B-scan stitching artefacts to deal with, the company said.
The technology is already in real world clinical use, with Insight interviewing the world’s first independent optometrist to purchase the system in 2024, Alice Springs practitioner Mr Jo Murphy.
Regarding the Alcon acquisition, Cylite wrote on its Linkedin page: “Keep an eye out for future updates on how we are working together to incorporate this innovation into Alcon’s comprehensive eyecare portfolio.”
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