Cataract surgery is the focus of Johnson & Johnson Surgical Vision, a subsidiary of its $5.5 billion Vision business.
The division, which manufactures ophthalmic products for cataract and laser refractive surgery, is part of the J&J MedTech segment, which has a large campus in Irvine with 1,600 employees.
Overseeing the growth is Erin Powers, president of Surgical Vision in the U.S. and Canada. While the lenses are designed in the Netherlands, the insertion systems are made at the R&D lab in Irvine, according to Powers.
“It’s based on where I would say our core functional teams are,” Powers told the Business Journal during a recent tour of its facilities. “That’s why we put such new groups here, because we’ve got really great depth of knowledge in medtech.”
J&J’s presence reflects Orange County’s strength in the ophthalmology industry. Major companies have emerged here, including Glaukos Corp., maker of the world’s smallest medical device; Staar Surgical Co., whose annual sales reached $314 million in 2024; and RxSight Inc., which has pioneered a method to correct vision after cataract surgery. Alcon, which makes devices for eye surgeries in Lake Forest, employs 1,600. Allergan Inc., which first became famous for its eye products before Botox, still has its headquarters in Irvine, where it’s a unit of AbbVie Inc.
“A lot of innovation is happening here, and many ophthalmic companies have centers here for that exact reason,” Powers said.
New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J is one of the world’s largest healthcare companies, employing more than 138,000 employees worldwide. The company reported on Jan. 21 that sales grew 6% to $94.2 billion in 2025 and has a $573 billion market cap at press time (NYSE: JNJ).
Besides its Vision unit, other key J&J businesses include cardiovascular, neuroscience and oncology.
This week, the Business Journal has a special report on healthcare, including a list of the biggest hospitals in Orange County (see page 15).
Dual Pump Machine Used for Cataract Surgery
Powers stepped into her current role about 10 months ago after serving as vice president for two years. She’s a veteran of the eye health industry with nearly 20 years of experience across vision-focused companies.
“J&J is known for a complete cataract offering with market-leading optical solutions,” Powers said.
J&J Vision says it provides care to improve the vision of 40 million people’s vision each year.
In addition to cataract surgery, it develops treatments for common eye conditions including myopia, also known as nearsightedness, presbyopia, astigmatism and dry eye.
Powers said that the “crown jewel” of Surgical Vision is the Veritas Vision System.
The machine uses phacoemulsification, a noninvasive method of cataract surgery that uses ultrasonic vibrations to emulsify and suction out the cloudy cataract lenses.
The Veritas system is the only product on the market that offers two distinct vacuum methods, according to Powers.
“That’s very important when you look at efficiency, safety and efficacy of the cataract extraction,” Powers said.
With the dual pumps, surgeons can switch between a more controlled flow-based vacuum and high-powered suction to remove everything from the eye, helping ensure the intraocular pressure remains stable during the procedure.
A prime example of J&J Surgical Vision’s innovation is the SmartLoad delivery system from an efficiency and environmental standpoints, Powers said.
Once the cataract is removed, a foldable intraocular lens (IOL) is inserted in the eye through the same incision.
The SmartLoad is a reusable, titanium handpiece pre-loaded with the lens, eliminating manual loading errors and minimizing the risk of infection.
It was designed to reduce the environmental impact of cataract surgery and is said to generate 4.2 times less plastic waste than other preloaded disposable systems.
Cataract surgery is among the most common surgical procedures worldwide, with nearly 30 million surgeries performed annually.
“When you start looking at millions of cataract surgeries on an annual basis, we have to pay attention to stuff like this and its cost for our surgeons,” Powers said.
While Powers said new products are coming this year, she noted the current focus is on the company’s newest IOL, TECNIS Odyssey, which launched in 2024.
Odyssey is a full visual range IOL made for presbyopia, or age-related loss of close-up vision.
“A lot of products in the market right now are what we call trifocal, meaning you can see near, intermediate and distance,” Powers said. “Full visual range means it’s a very harmonious visual curve, and we’ve had phenomenal success with that.”
The IOL provides two-times better contrast in lower lighting than competing trifocal IOL PanOptix made by Alcon, according to J&J.
Patients reported being able to read 14% smaller print with 93% reporting none to little halos, glare or starbursts one month after surgery.
Division Formed Out of Former Abbott Subsidiary
J&J Vision has dual headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida, and Irvine, and employs more than 10,000 people worldwide.
It was created in 2017 through a $4.3 billion acquisition of Abbott Medical Optics Inc. (AMO), a former Abbott Laboratories subsidiary based in Santa Ana.
It has two units: J&J Surgical Vision (formerly AMO) and J&J Vision Care, the maker of the Acuvue contact lens line.
Last year, the surgical unit increased sales by 10% to $1.6 billion; about a third of its sales were in the U.S., while two-thirds were international. The contact lens unit reported sales rose 4.8% to $3.9 billion.
Powers, who received an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and the London Business School, said her first job out of college was in marketing at Santa Clara-based Visx, a provider of laser correction services that got bought by AMO for $1.3 billion in 2004 and is now part of J&J Vision’s portfolio.
Powers said she decided to return to J&J because she felt the company was expanding into new patient segments, not only for economic reasons but also based on physiological needs.
“We’re in the category to drive patient care and physician wellbeing forward; we’re not choosing just the high-value segments to do that,” Powers said, referring to the SmartLOAD delivery system as an example.
J&J Vision’s SoCal Heritage
While Johnson & Johnson is based in New Brunswick, New Jersey, its Vision business has deep roots in Southern California.
The unit traces back to American Medical Optics Inc., originally a Santa Ana-based company that, despite several acquisitions, remains in the region. Founded in 1976, American Medical Optics started as a research unit of Chicago-based American Hospital Supply Co.
Over three decades, it was renamed to Allergan Medical Optics, Advanced Medical Optics, and finally, Abbott Medical Optics before J&J acquired the company from Abbott Laboratories for $4.3 billion in 2017.
“The foundation of this business that J&J has started in Southern California, and the primary product line started with an acquisition,” Jim Mazzo, a top executive in OC’s ophthalmology industry, told the Business Journal.
Mazzo was part of Allergan, the famous maker of Botox, when the company announced its acquisition of American Medical Optics in 1986, renaming it Allergan Medical Optics and making it the ophthalmic surgical arm of its pharmaceutical business.
In 2002, Allergan decided to spin out the eye care unit to focus more on pharmaceuticals.
Mazzo was tapped to lead the newly created public company based in Santa Ana, then named Advanced Medical Optics, as its chief executive. As CEO, he helped expand the business into a $1 billion industry leader in vision correction surgery.
Advanced Medical Optics’ first acquisition was Pfizer Inc.’s surgical ophthalmology business, comprising assets from Swedish biotech company Pharmacia Corp., including the Healon line of ophthalmic viscosurgical devices and Tecnis IOLs, which are still part of J&J’s current portfolio.
“There would be no way J&J would have these product lines if it wasn’t for what we did at Advanced Medical Optics,” Mazzo said. “So, even though it’s changed hands, the heritage of the product lines has stayed true.”
It was listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “EYE” for about seven years before Chicago healthcare giant Abbott bought the company in 2009 for $2.8 billion at a 500% premium.
Mazzo said that many people who started at Allergan and other notable companies in the space helped create the heritage of the local ophthalmic industry.
Mazzo was at Carl Zeiss Meditec AG at the same time as Erin Powers, who is the current president of J&J Surgical Vision in the U.S. and Canada.
“Erin’s dad is Dr. Steve Schallhorn, who is one of the world’s famous ophthalmologists, and her sister is a famous ophthalmologist in San Francisco, so people have stayed within the industry even though they’ve left companies,” Mazzo said. “We stay in our space because we love what we do.”
An ‘Amazing’ Cataract Surgery
I was born with eyesight of around 20/80 vision. And astigmatism.
When I was a teenager, I jumped at the chance to dump my coke-bottle eyeglasses for contact lenses. When LASIK surgery appeared, doctors told me that my astigmatism was too severe to correct.
Then, a few years ago, my optometrist informed me that I would need surgery to remove cataracts. I dreaded this news—what were the risks of becoming blind?
Kaiser Permanente’s Dr. Kevin Yuhan, whom I was told is one of the world’s best cataract surgeons, reassured me that he had performed 70,000 such surgeries. Kaiser asked me whether I wanted to get the Toric lenses, which would cost about $1,200 more. Sure, my eyes are worth it.
Two years ago, Dr. Yuhan conducted the first surgery at about 7:30 a.m. on a Thursday morning at the MemorialCare Laguna Niguel Surgery Center. I was put under for a few minutes and then recovered. No pain. Within hours, I was able to see again. About six weeks later, the other eye went under surgery. I was awake, and the procedure seemed like a kaleidoscope of colors. It took about 15 minutes.
At my follow-up eye exams, the optometrists were amazed. My vision was now like 20-20. I was so pleased that I recommend cataract surgery to anyone with vision problems. To me, the surgery is like a pair of glasses: the lens pops out, and the doctors can put in a new one.
Without getting too detailed, it turns out my eyes have 6 diopters of astigmatism, which is considered extreme in ophthalmology; the lenses to correct it weren’t even invented until about five years ago.
The manufacturers of my lens? J&J Surgical Vision unit, which has its co-headquarters in Irvine. During my recent visit to its facilities, the scientists surrounded me as if I was an unusual success story.
“You are special,” Erin Powers, president of J&J Surgical Vision in the U.S. and Canada, told me almost two years after the surgeries. “This is awesome. How so much technology and science have gone into that one tiny, little IOL in your eye is amazing.”
— Peter J. Brennan
