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The wavelength growing eyes need is missing indoors.

Iridian Vision Sciences designs light for the desk, the classroom and the workplace. It restores the biological signal daylight gives the eye, to help slow the progression of myopia before it becomes a lifelong risk.

See how it works Meet the lamp
50%of the world projected to be myopic by 2050
96%of 19-year-old men in Seoul are myopic
42%of Americans aged 12 to 54, up from 25% in the early 1970s
480nmthe melanopic blue indoor light leaves out

An epidemic four decades in the making

Myopia is the eyeball growing too long, and once it has, it does not shorten again. Left to progress, it raises lifelong risk of retinal detachment, glaucoma and macular degeneration. Screens, exam pressure and less time outdoors have made it the fastest-growing eye condition on earth, and by 2050 it is projected to affect half the global population.

The tools we have to slow it are eye drops, specialised lenses and more time outdoors. All of them depend on daily behaviour, and few families can hold to them for the years it takes. Iridian builds the fix into the light itself, where it needs no compliance at all.

50%of the global population projected to be myopic by 2050 (Holden et al., 2016)
938Mprojected to have high myopia by 2050, the group facing the greatest risk of permanent vision loss (Holden et al., 2016)
96.5%of 19-year-old men in Seoul are myopic, and one in five is highly myopic (Jung et al., 2012)
47%of young adults in Europe are myopic, against 24% across all ages (Williams et al., 2015)

Global myopia prevalence, 2000 to 2050

All myopia High myopia
Global myopia prevalence from 2000 to 2050 Myopia prevalence rises from 22.9% of the global population in 2000 to 34.0% in 2020, and is projected to reach 49.8% by 2050. High myopia rises from 2.7% in 2000 to 5.2% in 2020, and is projected to reach 9.8% by 2050. 60% 40% 20% 0 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 today 49.8% of the world 9.8% high myopia 22.9% 2.7%
Solid to 2020, projected beyond. Prevalence as a share of the global population. High myopia is defined at −5.00 dioptres or worse, the group carrying the greatest lifetime risk of retinal detachment, glaucoma and macular degeneration. Source: Holden et al., Ophthalmology 2016;123(5):1036–1042.

Sunlight carries a signal that indoor light leaves out

1

Sunlight carries it

Intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) fire maximally near 480nm, triggering a retinal dopamine response that helps regulate how the eye grows.

2

Indoor lighting lacks it

Standard LED modules emit blue light maximally around 450nm, then fall to a trough almost exactly at 480nm, the band the eye depends on.

3

Iridian restores it safely

Our light engine reintroduces the missing 480nm signal to support retinal dopamine release, while filtering out the 415–455nm band linked to long-term retinal stress.

Every part of the visible spectrum does something different to the eye

Iridian's light engine is tuned rather than dimmed or warmed. It targets the band the growing eye responds to, and removes the band ophthalmic literature flags as a long-term hazard. The room still looks like an ordinary well-lit room; the difference sits in the spectrum.

Retinal dopamine and melatonin work in opposition. Research has linked elevated morning melatonin to myopia in young adults, and poor sleep cycles to high myopia. Iridian is built to support the eye's retinal clock and the body's systemic circadian rhythm together, rather than one in isolation.

Selected research behind the approach

Holden et al., 2016Global prevalence of myopia and high myopia and temporal trends from 2000 through 2050. Ophthalmology
Hua et al., 2015Elevated light levels in schools have a protective effect on myopia. Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics
Stone et al., 1989Retinal dopamine and form deprivation myopia. PNAS
Berson et al., 2002Phototransduction by retinal ganglion cells that set the circadian clock. Science
Kearney et al., 2017Myopes have significantly higher serum melatonin concentrations than non-myopes. Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics
Read et al., 2015Light exposure and eye growth in childhood. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science
Jung et al., 2012Prevalence of myopia and its association with body stature and educational level in 19-year-old male conscripts in Seoul, South Korea. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science
Williams et al., 2015Prevalence of refractive error in Europe: the European Eye Epidemiology (E3) Consortium. European Journal of Epidemiology
Vitale et al., 2009Increased prevalence of myopia in the United States between 1971–1972 and 1999–2004. Archives of Ophthalmology
380nm420nm460nm500nm540nm580nm620nm660nm700nm

415–455nm: the HEV hazard, filtered out

High-energy visible light in this band is flagged across the retinal-toxicity literature as a driver of long-term photoreceptor stress. Iridian's engine removes it without dulling the light.

450nm: where standard LEDs peak

Off-the-shelf LED modules emit blue light maximally around 450nm, then dip to a trough almost exactly where the eye needs it most.

480nm: melanopic blue, restored

Intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) trigger dopamine release maximally near 480nm. That is the local signal which helps regulate healthy eye growth.

A patent-pending smart light, built for the desk

The Iridian desk lamp is the first product built on our light-engine platform. It is designed to sit wherever near-work happens, from homework to late nights at a screen.

A student doing homework at a desk lit by the Iridian lamp in an otherwise dark room.

Biomimetic light

480nm melanopic blue triggers the same retinal dopamine response daylight does, tuned to how the eye grows rather than to how a room looks.

Beyond standard LEDs

Off-the-shelf LEDs peak around 450nm with almost none of the wavelength that matters. Iridian's module is built to fill that gap.

Reflective desk mat

A patented companion mat reflects light back toward the eyes, so the effect holds on any desk whatever its surface or colour.

The Iridian lamp lighting a desk fitted with the reflective mat, an open textbook, a notebook and a laptop.
Close view of the Iridian lamp head, showing the individually tuned LED array behind its lens.

A stand-alone solution, built for safety as much as effect. Eye drops and specialised lenses only slow progression, and lenses lose much of their effect at typical indoor light levels. Iridian's light engine also strips out high-energy visible (HEV) light, the blue-light hazard increasingly flagged in the literature as lighting moves to LED, so the protective effect never comes at the cost of long-term retinal exposure.

One light engine, wherever young eyes work

The IP inside the Iridian lamp is a licensable light-engine platform, built to integrate into the fittings institutions already have overhead.

Schools

Classrooms & libraries

Ceiling and panel retrofits that give an entire classroom of developing eyes the same protective wavelength, with no individual device to buy or switch on.

Universities

Lecture halls & study spaces

Campuses are where near-work intensifies for young adults already at elevated risk of progression.

Workplaces

Offices & the modern desk

For employers rethinking wellbeing benefits, wavelength-tuned lighting is a fixture upgrade with a measurable rationale behind it.

100 → 500 lux at desk height

The classroom evidence is already on the record.

Hua et al. (2015) raised desk-height illumination from ~100 to ~500 lux across 56 classrooms and 300+ children in China. After one year, myopia incidence fell from 10% in the control classrooms to 4% where lighting was elevated, less than half the control rate.

Iridian's patent-pending technology is designed to license into architectural and commercial lighting as well as consumer products, so an entire building can be treated at once.

Discuss a licensing partnership

Built in Australia for a global problem

Myopia is not evenly distributed, and neither is our rollout. We launch at home, then follow the epidemic to where it is most acute.

Launch

Australia

Home market. Fast regulatory pathway, an established optometry channel, and where Iridian's founding science began.

Expand

East Asia

Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong are dense, exam-intensive markets. Across urban East and Southeast Asia, 80 to 90% of school leavers are myopic.

Scale

Europe

Myopia reaches 47% in young European adults, roughly double the 24% seen across all age groups, and it is still rising.

Scale

United States

The world's largest direct-to-consumer eyewear and eye-health market. Myopia affects 42% of Americans aged 12 to 54, up from 25% three decades earlier.

Built by a clinician and an inventor

Iridian was founded to move preventive eye-health science out of the journals and onto the desks, classrooms and offices where it can change outcomes.

SM
Dr Stephen Mason, OD FAAO
CO-FOUNDER

A practising optometrist of more than two decades and a Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry, Stephen has lectured at optometry conferences and postgraduate programs across Australia, and presented Iridian's founding research internationally at the LED professional Symposium in Bregenz. He holds prior patents in biometrics and personal identification, and led the development of the light-based IP behind Iridian's approach to myopia and macular-degeneration prevention, grounded in the retinal dopamine response.

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DS
Dr Doug Steel
CO-FOUNDER

Doug co-founded Iridian Vision Sciences to take preventive, light-based eye care out of the lab and into the classroom, the office and the home, alongside Stephen's clinical and IP foundation.

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Read the underlying research

Talks, data and technical background behind the Iridian light engine.

The Bregenz presentation

Tunable LED Lighting and the Retinal Dopamine Response: A Remedy for Myopia. Dr Stephen Mason's invited talk at the 8th International LED professional Symposium + Expo, Bregenz, September 2018.

Download .pptx