Eye product concern slams Bausch & Lomb

updated 4:49 p.m. ET April 11, 2006

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Shares of Bausch & Lomb Inc. tumbled 14.6 percent Tuesday after the eye-care products maker halted shipments of a contact lens solution linked by federal officials to a rare fungal infection that can cause blindness.

Analysts cut their ratings, fearing the news could hurt sales of the company’s other products. The stock dipped $8.41 to close at a 2½-year low of $49.03 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Bausch & Lomb, which also makes contact lenses, ophthalmic drugs and vision-correction surgical instruments, said late Monday it was voluntarily suspending U.S. shipments of its ReNu with MoistureLoc contact lens solution.

The company stopped short of pulling the brand, made at its factory in Greenville, S.C., but merchants led by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Walgreen Co. began removing it from store shelves Tuesday.

The fungus, called Fusarium, is commonly found in plant material and soil in tropical and subtropical regions. Without eye-drop treatment, which can last two to three months, the infection can scar the cornea and blind its victims.

Symptoms can include blurry vision, pain or redness, increased sensitivity to light and excessive discharge from the eye. It is not transmitted from person to person.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating 109 reports of infection in patients in 17 states since June 2005. It has made no direct link between ReNu and the infections, but a high incidence of the affected people had used the solution.

In February, Bausch & Lomb stopped shipments of ReNu in Singapore and Hong Kong after a similar spike in infections was reported in contact-lens wearers there. It is partnering with health authorities and researchers to investigate the extent and cause of the outbreak, which also surfaced in Malaysia.

More than 30 million Americans wear contact lenses, and the ReNu brand generated $45 million in U.S. sales last year.

“We’ve never had an instance where a contact-lens care product has had any direct link to infection of this scale,” said Dr. Art Epstein, a Long Island optometrist who chairs the American Optometric Association’s contact lens and cornea section. “My guess is that there are significantly more patients in the field who have this infection or will have this infection and be subject to analysis.

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