Santa Ana’s Advanced Medical Optics Inc., a maker of eye surgery and contact lens products, said Wednesday it is exercising an option to acquire startup Quest Vision Technologies Inc.
Quest Vision, based in Northern California’s Tiburon, is a research and development stage company that started in 2000.
Advanced Medical and Quest struck a year-long research and licensing pact a year ago to come up with an intraocular lens for presbyopia, the progressive loss of the eye’s ability to change focus from far to near objects.
The deal is the latest in a series for Advanced Medical. In November, the company said it would pay $1.3 billion to buy Visx Inc., a Santa Clara-based maker of laser devices to correct vision.
Earlier last year, the company paid $450 million to buy Pfizer Inc.’s cataract surgery business.
