An interesting post from our good friend, CakeBiz, who lives in AOL land but regularly visits the SI continent:
Subject: SNRS vs. Novatec
Date: Mon, Apr 6, 1998 18:16 EDT
From: CakeBiz
Message-id: <1998040622164301.SAA07062@ladder03.news.aol.com>
After reading Pappy's posts on the SI thread, I called my sources directly to get some good information on the comments about Novatec being a potential competitor to Sunrise. Basically, it's quite simple. The Novatec laser is an EXCIMER laser. It is a solid state EXCIMER laser and that is a definite improvement on the gas EXCIMER lasers presently being used. The Novatec laser has been a long time coming, yet its competition is with
other EXCIMER lasers, basically Visx, Autonomous, etc. For Novatec to do a hyperopic procedure, it would be no different than other EXCIMER lasers - it is CONTACT MODE. The fact that it is solid state doesn't change the operation at all. They do LASIK or frontal ablation, which can result in corneal ectasia, which creates a situation that could be unstable for patients. Basically each new EXCIMER laser that comes out is an improvement on
its predecessor so, essentially, each one gets better. Solid state is a nice advance and is more user friendly. It is still difficult to justify the cost of the EXCIMER lasers. It is difficult to make money on the capital equipment. And each new EXCIMER laser must pay royalties on the original EXCIMER laser patent holder.
SUNRISE LTK IS NOT AN EXCIMER LASER. THE LTK PROCEDURE IS NON CONTACT MODE - NO CUTTING, NO ABLATION, NO REGRESSION, LESS EXPENSIVE MACHINE, LESS EXPENSIVE PROCEDURE AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY, SUNRISE OWNS THE PATENT! Novatec poses NO threat as competiton to Sunrise's LTK NON CONTACT MODE LASER. That's it - pure and simple. I hope this answers Pappy directly and I welcome any comments, contrary or otherwise! Good luck to all!
Regards,
Cake
|
