Santa Ana’s Advanced Medical Optics Inc. inadvertently shined an unflattering spotlight on users of its contact lens solution with a recall late last month.
When the news broke, Advanced Medical stressed the problem wasn’t with its solution but rather how people handle their lenses.
In context, the strategy made some sense: Just seven months earlier, Advanced Medical recalled its Complete MoisturePlus solution after contamination was found at bottles produced in China.
This time around, the recall wasn’t due to manufacturing issues. Advanced Medical voluntarily pulled the product after regulators found a link to a rare eye infection, Acanthamoeba keratitis, which can lead to blindness.
Other solution makers also were warned of the finding.
But the company’s invoking of users raised some eyebrows.
Last week, Advanced Medical Chief Executive James Mazzo said the company isn’t out to assign blame.
“By no means,” he said, “I’m not blaming the patient. At the end of the day, there’s probably nobody to blame because everybody followed what was approved.”
In a conference call three weeks ago, Advanced Medical took a different tack, saying the issue lies with an entire class of solutions that allow users to rinse contacts and not rub them with their finger and thumb to remove germs.
“There was a feeling that the lack of a rub could lead and has led to poor compliance and could be leading to issues beyond Acanthamoeba,” Mazzo said last week. “We probably should think of going back to some basics.”
The issue is a catch-22 for Advanced Medical: The Food and Drug Administration approves the marketing of solutions as “no-rub,” even though they may not be as effective as rubbing.
By year’s end, Advanced Medical plans to come back with a new Complete formulation that promotes rubbing on the packaging, Mazzo said.
The new emphasis on more thorough lens cleaning came from talking to eye doctors, some of whom tell contact wearers to rub their lenses clean, even if they’re using no-rub formulas, Mazzo said.
Recalls have been a major issue in the contact lens solution market for the past year.
Bausch & Lomb Inc., a rival that Advanced Medical has expressed interest in buying, came under fire last year for its handling of a recall of its ReNu with MoistureLoc contact lens solution after federal regulators linked it to outbreaks of a fungal infection.
Bausch & Lomb, which has accepted a $3 billion buyout bid from private equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC, suffered blows to its image and more than 300 lawsuits that analysts estimate could cost it up to $1 billion.
“The Bausch & Lomb case was certainly not handled extremely well,” said Laura Ries, cofounder of Ries & Ries, an Atlanta brand marketing firm. “I think they were relatively slow and not really getting their message out.”
Bausch & Lomb relied on advertising to tell its side of the story, Ries said.
“That is not effective,” she said.
For its part, Bausch & Lomb “acted professionally and appropriately in dealing with initial reports of” the fungul infection, spokesman Michael McDougall said.
Bausch & Lomb used national and regional TV, radio and newspaper advertising in its handling of the recall, McDougall said.
Advanced Medical has to walk a fine line on the issue of patients’ handling of contacts, according to advertising and branding executives.
The company’s comments about possible lens mishandling are aimed at analysts and investors, but “the danger is that this type of language gets out to the mass consumer,” Ries said.
It could be a “PR nightmare” if consumers perceive they’re being blamed, she said.
Getting Message Out
To fight that, Ries said a company has to focus on getting its message out,in this case, safe handling of lenses,through public relations and news accounts, not advertising.
Advanced Medical doesn’t plan an ad campaign, Mazzo said.
“Our primary promotion and advertising will be through the doctor,” he said.
Companies dealing with recalls should make sure that “you immediately get to the public with your brand positioning and your claims of distinction,” said Jim Hughes, founder of Brand Establishment, a branding firm with offices in Irvine and Blue Jay, a community near Lake Arrowhead.
Advanced Medical does plan to emphasize “the benefits of Complete” as part of its relaunch, Mazzo said.
“Our advantage is that this product has a good history and the product (version) that was recalled was a fairly new product,” he said. “Also, our support is through the practitioner. Our competitor, like B & L;, has a much more recognizable consumer name. For us, AMO is a practitioner name.
“We want to protect our brand, but we really want to support our customer, and that’s the practitioner,” he said.
