ALLIANCE

■ Vision Source entered into a relationship with Central Ohio Primary Care (COPC) to provide services to its patient base. COPC is a physician-owned primary care medical group with more than 300 providers in central Ohio.

COMPANY NEWS

■ Mohinder Merchea, O.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., has been named Alcon’s head of medical affairs for vision care in the U.S. and Canada.

■ Through a partnership with Vision Source, Bausch + Lomb has been named a Vision Source elite vendor for contact lens and lens care categories. With the designation comes marketing programs, pricing discounts and rebates to its network of optometrists.

■ CareCredit has donated a $25,000 grant to the AOA’s InfantSEE program, its fourth consecutive year the company has contributed to the program.

■ CooperVision and its employees have donated $125,000 to Optometry Giving Sight.

■ Essilor has launched the Eye Protect System, which includes blue violet-light protection. Its TREXA material is now available in Transitions lenses.

■ TearScience has cut prices 50% on single-use activators used with the LipiFlow treatment platform for meibomian gland disease. The cut is part of a strategy to make its technologies more available to eye care practitioners for the evaluation of and intervention in the disease.

EVENTS

■ Registration is open for the 30th annual International Vision Expo & Conference East, taking place on April 14 to 17 in New York. To register, visit VisionExpoEast.com.

FDA NEWS

■ Shire plc. has resubmitted a new drug application to the FDA for the dry eye therapy lifitegrast. Addressing an FDA request for more information, the NDA includes positive data from OPUS-3, a Phase III trial. OM