ROSE K Inventor Honored

2017.1.19

Congratulations, Paul!

It was announced earlier this month by the government of New Zealand that Paul Rose, inventor of the ROSE K brand of contact lenses for irregular cornea, has been appointed to be a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in recognition of his contributions to the field of ophthalmology and optometry.

The award, one of the highest honors is bestowed on individuals distinguished for their services and contributions and has now been given to Mr. Rose for the positive impact his invention has had for optometrists and improving the quality of life for patients with irregular cornea conditions. Rose started his own optometry practice in Hamilton, New Zealand in 1969 and through his experience in treating patients with the difficult condition of keratoconus he worked for roughly a decade to develop a lens design and fitting system to make the job easier.

Though he set out to find a way to simplify the difficult task of fitting contact lenses for these patients, what he came up with was a system that offered a 75% success rate when it first became available in New Zealand in 1989 and enabled even relatively inexperienced fitters to treat keratoconic patients, something which was previously limited to keratoconus specialists. The ROSE K system has five simple steps, and the design itself already includes many of the decisions that had to be made by the specialist before. The design has been gradually introduced to new markets over the years, and thanks to its ease of use and high success rate ROSE K has taken off globally and is now the most prescribed lens for keratoconus in the world and is sold in more than 90 countries.