Alpha Corporation’s first foray into orthokeratology goes back to the year 2000. Our founder was visiting the United States to attend a conference. It was there that he first learned about orthokeratology. Surprised by this groundbreaking technology and sensing its potential, we made a firm commitment to popularize it in Japan. Our company has been pursuing this challenge ever since. Orthokeratology was unknown in Japan at the time, so we faced significant opposition. We designed the lenses and conducted a number of tests to verify their efficacy and safety. Four years had passed by then, and it was 2004. We were able to conduct a one-year clinical trial at two medical institutions in Japan (Ehime University and the University of Tsukuba), which allowed us to confirm the efficacy and safety of our orthokeratology lenses with the cooperation of ophthalmologists. After that, we obtained our long-awaited marketing approval from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, becoming the first company in Japan to do so. About ten years had passed since that first remarkable encounter with orthokeratology.

What enabled Alpha Corporation to become the first company in Japan to develop and manufacture orthokeratology lenses? It was our reliable technology backed by many years of manufacturing hard contact lenses.

Since the advent of hard contacts made from materials with high oxygen permeability in the 1950s, hard contacts accounted for more than 80% of the domestic market prior to the introduction of soft contact lenses in the 1990s. It is no exaggeration to say that the history of contact lenses in Japan was the history of hard contacts at that time. It was right in the middle of this period, in 1970, that Alpha Corporation was founded. It is precisely because Alpha Corporation was forged by the Japanese market, which was dominated by hard contact lenses, that we were able to establish our current development and technical capabilities. This enabled us to develop and manufacture orthokeratology lenses, which require lathing complex inner surface shapes with high precision and reproducibility.

The rise of smartphones and tablets has dramatically changed people’s lifestyles globally. It is commonplace nowadays for people to own at least one such device. With the growing adoption of 5G and 6G, the use of IoT and AI will also increase. It’s all part of the increasing digitalization of society.

While such a future has its benefits, the global population of nearsighted people is exploding in proportion to the amount of data we handle. As of 2010, there were about two billion nearsighted people. That number is expected to increase to about five billion by 2050.

As the population of nearsighted people increases, the declining visual acuity of children is particularly concerning. Online classes and the use of smartphones and tablets have reduced the time spent outdoors, causing a rapid increase in myopia among children. In Japan, a record 34% of elementary school children have unaided decimal visual acuity of less than 1.0.^*1 In recent years, the prevalence of myopia among schoolchildren has increased dramatically not only in Japan but also in other East Asian countries such as China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore. The percentage of myopia among teenagers is said to be over 80%.^*2

*1 “School Health Statistics Survey 2019”, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
*2 Ding, et al., Surv Ophthalmol, 62(5), 2017

As a contact lens manufacturer, we cannot overlook the reality that the nearsighted population, including both children and adults, is rapidly increasing around the world. Orthokeratology lenses hold so much promise as a means of correcting myopia, and our development of these lenses couldn’t have come at a better time. Through orthokeratology lenses with Japanese roots that go beyond the Made-in-Japan brand framework and with the Alpha Quality that only our company is capable of, we are taking on the global myopia problem.

We want people worldwide to be using Alpha lenses. In fact, we are well on the way toward achieving that dream. Marketing approval in Japan was followed by approval in China. Since then, we have been manufacturing and selling our products in China as well. That expertise and those experiences have enabled us to expand even further in recent years — into markets in South Korea, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. Orthokeratology lenses are receiving more and more attention on a global scale. Going forward, as attention to Alpha lenses continues to grow, we will continue striving to deliver them to as many people as possible.

Over the past 50 years, people’s awareness of their vision and the surrounding environment have changed dramatically. But however much the times may change, people’s desire to see the world more clearly will never change. Our desire has always been to help people who have trouble seeing. It doesn’t matter if it’s lots of people or just one person if there is any way we can help people with our technology. We think that being able to see isn’t just about illuminating the present. It’s also about providing a beacon of hope that illuminates the future and makes life joyful. Now and into the future, Alpha Corporation will continue to manufacture contact lenses to bring people around the world the joys of seeing and living.