In just a few years, British company Rayner has grown its presence Down Under significantly. The company’s leaders outline the opportunities in Australian cataract surgery and why, sometimes, less is more.
Aussies like to back the underdog.
And just as David had a few tricks up his sleeve in his contest with Goliath, British ophthalmic company and intraocular lens (IOL) manufacturer Rayner has discovered there are advantages in being the smaller, more nimble player in a tough, competitive market.
And it is using those advantages to tackle those bigger players and grow.
In reality, Rayner is not a little guy. It’s a leading ophthalmology company and manufacturer of IOLs based in Worthing, the UK, where, just as this article went to print, it has doubled its production capacity to produce four million IOLs a year.
Its products and reputation are well known in the Northern Hemisphere.
But up until a few years ago it was more of a peripheral figure in Australia, its products distributed for 18 years in this part of the world, against big players like Alcon, Zeiss, Johnson & Johnson and Bausch + Lomb.
That began to change in January 2022 when the company decided it needed a greater presence in Australia and a way to establish long-term, meaningful relationships with the country’s ophthalmic community.
It looked to Ms Lisa Farquhar, a long-time leader in the medical device industry with plenty of experience working with those bigger players in ophthalmology, including leadership roles at Alcon and Australian medical device company Ellex.
“I like to build businesses that provide an alternative,” she says. “I had an opportunity to do that here at Rayner; they were a blank canvas in Australia, so I thought, well, why not, let’s do it.”
In early 2022 Rayner in Australia was just two people: Farquhar and Ms Sue Ford, an Australian ex-pat working for just under a decade with Rayner UK, who was returning home.
Three years on, the Australian arm of Rayner is pushing 20 staff, with salespeople in practically every state, backed up by leading figures in its global business, including Mr Kuntal Joshi, vice president of international sales, as well as the heads of international marketing and finance, and the director of Rayner’s APAC business. They live in Australia, with a focus beyond its shores, but also contribute to local decision-making.
Because of that, Rayner has a great story to tell and a pipeline of innovative new products to share, but it remains a small, nimble player steadily nibbling at the big guys’ market share.
Farquhar says she and her team have relished growing surgeon choice within those three years. “Flying under the radar of our opposition for the first few years let us grow Rayner’s brand unhindered.
“It doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’ve got big players with established substantial market share, going slow and steady” was just the way Farquhar liked it.
It’s reflected in how she has built the national team.
Many of her colleagues also have extensive ophthalmic backgrounds and experience with the bigger companies, in ophthalmic clinics and focused on patient outcomes.
“We continue to find people that really liked our philosophy,” she says.
They discovered that surgeons like the philosophy as well.
“The surgeons know that we’re the new kid on the block, but we’ve got this British calm,” says Farquhar.
“And we’re really transparent – surgeons can come and visit, we walk them through our factory, we talk them through our processes.”
Making that conversation easier was a key early collaboration with Western Australian ophthalmologist Professor Graham Barrett, just as Rayner was taking its first steps in the Aussie market.
Rayner worked with Prof Barrett, a well-respected voice in Australia and around the world, to develop the RayOne EMV, an Increased Range of Focus lens. It adopts an optical concept he had been working on for years, based on positive spherical aberration, and Rayner turned out to be the ideal partner.
“That brought us some notoriety and established credibility in Australia,” Farquhar says.
Prof Barrett’s EMV IOL and the backing of others, including Dr Ben LaHood, helped lay a bridge over another stretch of troubled water – Aussie surgeons’ lack of familiarity with IOLs using hydrophilic, rather than hydrophobic, material.
When Farquhar resurfaced after some time away from the ophthalmic sector, and at the head of Rayner’s push into Australia, former colleagues questioned her judgement.
“They said, ‘what are you doing? You know how hard it’s going to be to sell a new lens and material in this market. Well, you’re either going to crash and burn or you’re actually going to take it head on.”
Rayner found Australian surgeons to be sceptical but “open-minded”.
“Our surgeons have always been very curious,” says Farquhar. “Our surgeons travel the world and have the ability to have new technology on their doorstep pretty readily, they embrace that; they like being pioneers, forward-thinking.”
“We were one of the first countries in the world to embrace toric and astigmatic correction with IOLs.
“Australian surgeons provide honest commentary, which can be a good thing and a bad thing – calling a spade a shovel,” she says.
It was important that they deal with people at Rayner steeped in the ophthalmic industry. Of the company’s seven sales reps in Australia, six are either orthoptists or optometrists.
“And Rayner listens, which is especially important when many of those surgeons are contributing to Rayner’s science and product development,” says Joshi. “We listen to surgeons, we act fast and surgeons like that about us,” he says. “The RayOne EMV lens was an example of that. We started to work with Professor Barrett and were pretty fast at taking that concept and developing it and commercialising it.”
Another aspect of Rayner’s growth in Australia has been the way that has aligned with its roll-out of new products and innovation.
Aussie surgeons were some of the first implanters of Rayner’s RayOne Galaxy IOLs that – with a novel spiral design – have been well received by the global ophthalmic community. They are now available in Australia but waiting to gain Prostheses List approval.
The company is already moving beyond IOLs and shaking it up elsewhere.
Rayner has recently extended its footprint to other aspects of surgery and eyecare.
wWith the acquisition of Sophi, Swiss Ophthalmology Innovation, in 2024, Rayner’s eco-conscious phacoemulsification platform allows multiple procedures from a single cassette, which it says will reduce surgical costs and impacts on the environment.
Being wireless and with a small footprint provides a versatile choice for cataract surgeons.
Rayner also now manufactures its own ophthalmic viscosurgical devices (OVD) Ophtesis, which are bio-fermented, enabling unrefrigerated use in the OR with a larger volume for versatility.
Joshi and Farquhar believe that reliable pipeline of product and innovation, coupled with a great narrative and talented, knowledgeable story-telling experts, will help Rayner grow further in Australia.
“Our large competitors have some fantastic products and some great people, and are obviously steeped in a legacy, with great processes,” she says.
“But being open to change, nimble and agile, and seeking continual improvement in patient outcomes makes surgeons interested to work with us.”
Sometimes it’s good to be David rather than Goliath.
More reading
Rayner’s EMV lens wins prestigious King’s Award for Enterprise 2025
Rayner’s world-first Galaxy spiral IOL – do believe the hype
Rayner introduces new and improved RayTrace
