Clariti 1 Day: Making Silicone Hydrogel Daily Disposables Accessible to Every Wearer

For much of the history of silicone hydrogel contact lens materials, the combination of superior oxygen transmissibility and the manufacturing complexity required to produce these materials cost-effectively limited their availability to monthly and two-week replacement lens formats. Daily disposable lenses—the modality associated with maximum convenience and hygiene—remained the domain of conventional hydrogel materials that offered lower oxygen performance, creating a trade-off for patients who wanted the health benefits of silicone hydrogel but preferred the convenience of daily replacement.

CooperVision’s Clariti 1 Day changed this by demonstrating that silicone hydrogel daily disposables could be produced at a price point comparable to conventional hydrogel daily lenses—extending the oxygen health benefits of silicone hydrogel to the daily disposable modality without requiring wearers to pay a substantial premium. This democratization of silicone hydrogel technology has made the corneal health benefits of high-oxygen materials available to a much broader population of contact lens wearers, including those for whom the premium pricing of first-generation silicone hydrogel daily disposables was prohibitive.

The Oxygen Benefit of Silicone Hydrogel in Daily Disposables

The most common objection to the proposition that oxygen transmissibility matters in daily disposable lenses is the reasonable argument that daily wear lenses are removed each evening, allowing the cornea to receive unrestricted oxygen from the atmosphere during sleep—the period when closed-eye conditions would otherwise create the greatest oxygen restriction. If the lens is removed for the eight or more hours of normal sleep, does the oxygen transmissibility of a daily disposable lens that is worn only during waking hours really matter? The evidence suggests that it does, for several reasons.

First, the cornea’s metabolic demands during the waking hours are significant, and higher oxygen transmissibility maintains a more favorable oxygen balance throughout the wearing day, reducing the risk of corneal swelling, endothelial changes, and other signs of subclinical hypoxic stress. Second, extended wear scenarios—traveling across time zones, overnight work, irregular schedules—may occasionally require daily disposable wearers to sleep in their lenses or wear them for periods exceeding the typical 16-hour limit, situations where higher oxygen transmissibility provides an important safety margin.

Third, emerging research suggests that cumulative daily hypoxic stress, even during non-sleeping hours, may have clinically relevant effects over years of wearing history that have not yet been fully characterized, making a conservative approach to oxygen transmissibility advisable even for daily wear. The Clariti 1 Day’s silicone hydrogel material addresses these concerns, providing oxygen performance that conventional hydrogel daily disposables cannot match, at a price that makes the choice between the two categories cost-neutral for most wearers.

WetLoc Technology: Surface Wettability by Design

The primary materials engineering challenge of silicone hydrogel daily disposable production is achieving the surface wettability required for comfortable wear without the surface treatment processes that add significant cost and complexity to monthly lens manufacturing. First-generation silicone hydrogel lenses required plasma or other surface treatments to render their hydrophobic surfaces wettable—processes that added manufacturing steps and cost, and that produced surface coatings that could degrade over time.

CooperVision’s WetLoc Technology addresses this challenge through a molecular design approach that permanently bonds water molecules to the somofilcon A polymer chains throughout the lens material, creating inherent wettability that does not depend on surface coatings or treatments. The WetLoc approach is distinct from both surface coating methods (which create a hydrophilic outer layer over a hydrophobic silicone hydrogel core) and from the internally wettable silicone hydrogel approaches that other manufacturers have developed.

The WetLoc bonding creates water retention characteristics that are intrinsic to the material structure rather than dependent on surface integrity, providing consistent wettability throughout the wearing day without the degradation that surface coatings can experience over the course of a wearing period. This inherent wettability ensures that Clariti 1 Day lenses remain comfortable from insertion to removal, without the progressive drying that can affect surface-treated lenses as their coatings are depleted by blinking and evaporation.

Somofilcon A Material Specifications

The somofilcon A silicone hydrogel material of the Clariti 1 Day achieves a Dk/t of 86 Barrer/cm—significantly higher than conventional hydrogel daily disposables (which typically range from 20-40 Barrer/cm) but below the values of premium silicone hydrogel daily lenses that prioritize maximum oxygen performance at higher cost. For routine daily wear in a daily disposable lens that is replaced each evening, this oxygen performance level is appropriate and clinically sound for the vast majority of patients, providing a meaningful improvement over conventional hydrogels without the unnecessary expense of higher-Dk materials designed for extended wear or challenging wearing conditions.

Water content of 56% provides a comfortable initial lens feel and supports the WetLoc system’s moisture retention through the wearing day, balancing the competing demands of oxygen transmissibility (which tends to decrease with increasing water content) and comfort (which tends to increase with water content). The lens’s 8.6mm base curve and 14.1mm diameter represent standard fitting parameters that accommodate a wide range of corneal geometries without the fitting complexity that specialized parameters can introduce, making the Clariti 1 Day suitable for the majority of contact lens candidates.

Toric Options for Astigmatism Correction

The Clariti 1 Day Toric extends the benefits of the Clariti platform to patients with astigmatism, providing daily disposable silicone hydrogel correction for cylinder powers up to -2.25 diopters. The toric lens uses a ballast stabilization approach that maintains consistent rotational orientation on the eye—the critical factor in toric lens visual performance, as rotation of the lens away from its intended orientation directly degrades astigmatism correction accuracy.

The stabilization system combines prism ballast (a thicker lower edge that uses gravity to orient the lens) with a thin zone design that interacts with the eyelids to maintain consistent rotational alignment. For astigmatic patients who have been frustrated by the limited options or high cost of daily disposable toric lenses, the Clariti 1 Day Toric offers an accessible entry point to the convenience and hygiene of daily replacement without the oxygen compromise of conventional hydrogel alternatives.

Cost Analysis and Value Proposition

The Clariti 1 Day’s price positioning near conventional hydrogel daily disposables makes the silicone hydrogel oxygen advantage effectively free for wearers who are choosing between daily disposable lens options. The additional cost per lens compared to the cheapest conventional hydrogel alternatives is small enough that most wearers will find the oxygen performance improvement easily justified from both a health and comfort perspective, particularly given the long-term corneal health benefits of maintaining adequate oxygen supply during wear.

For patients who have been using conventional hydrogel daily disposables and experiencing end-of-day redness, discomfort, or reduced wearing time, switching to Clariti 1 Day provides a meaningful upgrade in performance at minimal additional cost, making it one of the most cost-effective interventions available for contact lens-related comfort issues.

Conclusion: Silicone Hydrogel for Everyone

The CooperVision Clariti 1 Day’s market significance extends beyond its performance characteristics to the accessibility principle it represents: the democratization of silicone hydrogel technology to the daily disposable modality at a price point that makes the oxygen health benefit available to a much larger proportion of contact lens wearers than premium silicone hydrogel daily lenses can reach.

For patients and eye care professionals who believe that daily disposable wearers deserve the corneal health benefits of silicone hydrogel without paying a premium for them, the Clariti 1 Day provides the most convincing available argument that high oxygen performance and affordable pricing need not be mutually exclusive.