“Myopia is very much a problem in China. We want to work with the Chinese community, with Chinese science, to solve it,” Maximilian Foerst, President and CEO of ZEISS Greater China, an internationally leading technology enterprise operating in the fields of optics and optoelectronics, said on November 5.  

“About 50 percent of myopes in the world are in China and by the age of 20, 80 percent of Chinese have myopia,” Foerst told Beijing Review at the fifth China International Import Expo (CIIE). 

In 2021, ZEISS worked with Wenzhou Medical University to develop its MyoCare Lenses, a new product to slow the progression of myopia using orthokeratology, which is the use of specially designed contact lenses to reshape the surface of the eye. “We've had a very strategic collaboration with them, specifically in the development of the lens, its underlying science, and then in the clinical trials to gather proof of [the product’s] efficacy and how we can improve it,” Foerst said. 

“Wenzhou [Medical University] is a globally leading university in terms of eye care and they have a lot of experience with [contact] lenses in particular,” he said, “and so it’s the perfect partner for us.” 

The product is one of the highlights of the ZEISS booth at this year’s CIIE. Foerst said CIIE is an important platform “to talk with government officials and our customers who are coming here, and show the broader public what we are doing in China, how we are developing and what products we have for them.” This is the fifth year the company has participated in the expo and its booth has expanded from 300 square meters to 800.  

“You can see how important the CIIE has been for us over the years through the numbers,” Foerst said, adding that the company’s products have so far received a very good response from Chinese consumers. “If you look at the last five years of ZEISS, we have been growing, despite COVID-19, by close to 20 percent every year,” he said. “I think this is a clear sign Chinese consumers endorse our products.” 

Foerst said he watched President Xi Jinping’s keynote speech at the opening ceremony of this year’s CIIE, and thought the address was very important for their company moving forward.  

“For me, it contained several topics which are extremely important for our development here in China. First, I think is the continuation of China’s opening up. This is very important,” he said. “As a technology company, we live off the exchange of ideas.” 

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson and Elsbeth van Paridon 

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