ABOUT THIS COMPANY

ABOUT THIS COMPANY

Early visionaries

Bausch & Lomb is one of the largest manufacturers of contact lenses and eye-care products in the United States.  A pioneer in the development and marketing of contact lenses, Bausch & Lomb began in 1853 as a small optical store that sold European imports.  After the invention of vulcanized rubber frames in 1880, Bausch & Lomb expanded its service with the production of lenses for telescopes, binoculars, searchlights and microscopes, some of which were used by the American armed forces in WWI.  Bausch & Lomb’s contribution to the war effort also included Ray-Ban sunglasses, which the company developed for the U.S. Army Air Corps pilots, who battled with the sun’s glare as often as with enemy aircraft.  Ray-Bans were made available to civilians in 1937, and their rapid success led the company to go public only two years later.  More than 60 years later, the company dumped its iconic sunglasses line in April 1999, selling the operations to Italy’s Luxottica Group for a reported $640 million in order to solely focus on the production of new contact lenses and lens solutions.