(PRESS RELEASE) SAN RAMON, CA — CooperVision, a world leader in myopia management, has announced expanded roles for two prominent researchers, reinforcing the company’s commitment to combatting myopia, a chronic, progressive disease growing in both prevalence and severity.1
Baskar Arumugam, B.Opt., Ph.D., FAAO, has been appointed Senior Lead Clinical Scientist and David Hammond, BAppSci(Microbiol), BAppSci(Optom), Ph.D., COT, has been appointed Lead Clinical Scientist on the CooperVision myopia research and development team. Both play integral roles in research and product development at the leading edge of myopia control, including in-depth analysis of seven years of data from the MiSight 1 day clinical trial, the longest-running soft contact lens study among children.
Drs. Arumugam and Hammond co-authored works related to the MiSight 1 day study’s six- and seven-year findings. This includes the peer review paper “Long-Term Effect of Dual-Focus Contact Lenses on Myopia Progression in Children: A 6-year Multicenter Clinical Trial” (Chamberlain P, et al.), now published in Optometry and Vision Science. Their paper “Myopia Progression on Cessation of Dual-Focus Contact Lens Wear: MiSight 1 day 7 Year Findings” (Chamberlain P, Arumugam B, et al.) and companion poster (Hammond D, Arumugam B, et al.) also received widespread attention following the 2021 American Academy of Optometry Meeting.
“Our immense body of foundational and clinical research into myopia control and management has ignited global interest and action to take on this disease, energizing the eye care community, public health officials, and parents,” said Paul Chamberlain, BSc (Hons), CooperVision director of Research Programs. “We are well into our second decade of leading this field, and investing even more resources to advance the science, evidence-based products, and clinical guidance. Baskar’s and David’s deep knowledge and insights are central to these efforts.”
Arumugam’s and Hammond’s contributions join those of international researchers who have been studying the technology behind MiSight 1 day since the early 2000s, including the team¶ honored with the Garland W. Clay Award for their work on “A 3-Year Randomized Clinical Trial of MiSight Lenses for Myopia Control” (Chamberlain P, et al.).
Arumugam joined CooperVision in 2018, following several years on faculty at the University of Houston, where he also completed a postdoctoral fellowship. He earned a Ph.D. in myopia and ocular growth from the University of Melbourne.
Hammond joined CooperVision in 2020. Previously, he lectured on optometry and vision science at Flinders University and served as tenured faculty at Deakin University. He earned a Ph.D. in optometry, as well as molecular biology and microbiology from Queensland University of Technology and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley.