TOKYO—Hoya Corp. is launching MyoSmart with D.I.M.S. Technology (Defocus Incorporated Multiple Segments Technology). The new lens, which is designed to reduce myopia progression in myopic children and teenagers, was developed in cooperation with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Hoya is launching MyoSmart in Hong Kong and China in the summer of 2018. A broader, global launch is slated to begin in 2019 and 2020, the company said. Wearing defocus spectacles daily significantly slows myopia progression and axial elongation in myopic school children aged 8 to 13, according to a two-year double-blind randomized clinical trial in which 160 Chinese myopic children in Hong Kong participated.

Following the trial, which began in 2014, children wearing defocus lenses had 60 percent less myopia progression and in 21.5 percent of the children the myopia progression halted completely. The findings provide strong evidence that defocus lenses are effective in reducing myopia progression.


In 2012, Hoya and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University launched a cooperation with a focus on developing a new myopia control lens which is capable of preventing myopia from worsening or slowing down its progression.

Following years of academic studies, product design and clinical research, Hoya and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University developed a new spectacle lens, based on a Defocus Incorporated Multiple Segments Technology or “D.I.M.S. Technology,” which won the Grand Prize, Grand Award and Gold Medal at the 46th International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva in April 2018. The lens, which has a smooth surface and looks almost identical to a regular lens was presented in March at a symposium in Shanghai which was organized by Hoya. A second symposium for key opinion leaders, “Symposium of Defocus Theory and Clinical Results in Myopia Control,” was held at Hong Kong Hyatt Regency Hotel in April and was organized by Hoya Lens HK Ltd. and its global marketing team.

Additionally, Hoya faculty organized an international symposium on myopia, which took place in Budapest in May, 2018. There, 11 international and European experts exchanged views and insights on myopia control in general, as well as on the MyoSmart lens.