{"id":253708,"date":"2025-11-01T03:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T03:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/253708\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T03:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T03:33:10","slug":"jj-impact-ventures-invests-in-phelcom-to-expand-global-eye-health-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/253708\/","title":{"rendered":"J&#038;J Impact Ventures Invests in Phelcom to Expand Global Eye Health Access"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Eye care is essential for overall well-being. But despite its importance, billions of people worldwide lack access to quality and affordable eye care. Vision impairment ranks as the<br \/>\n<a class=\"Link link-enhancement\" href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/news-room\/fact-sheets\/detail\/blindness-and-visual-impairment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">third leading cause of disability globally<\/a>, affecting an estimated 2.2 billion people, nearly half of whom have conditions that could be prevented or treated. Moreover,<br \/>\n<a class=\"Link link-enhancement\" href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC9972379\/#:~:text=Given%20increasing%20rates%20of%20visual,an%20aging%20and%20changing%20population\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">90% of those without access to eye care<\/a> reside in low-and-middle-income countries. Traditional equipment for visioning screening and diagnostics is too expensive and not portable to reach low-resourced settings, especially rural communities.<\/p>\n<p>\n<a class=\"Link link-enhancement\" href=\"https:\/\/phelcom.com\/company\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">Phelcom<\/a> is a Brazilian-American company addressing these gaps to democratize access to vision care globally, supported by a new investment from J&amp;J Impact Ventures, an investment fund within the J&amp;J Foundation. They have developed innovative handheld cameras that capture high-quality images of both the anterior and posterior regions of the eye, but at a fraction of the cost of traditional benchtop equipment. Their smart devices are also AI-enabled, providing assessment for over 50 eye and vision-related diseases, including diabetic retinopathy, cataracts and glaucoma.<\/p>\n<p>We started Phelcom with the mission of making visual health accessible to everyone. We are excited to have Impact Ventures support us to achieve more of that goal.<\/p>\n<p>Jose Augusto Stuchi, Co-Founder &amp; CEO, Phelcom<\/p>\n<p>Phelcom\u2019s solutions significantly improve vision care and workflow efficiency, making timely diagnosis and treatment possible where it was previously difficult or impossible. The company has already reached over 5 million patients in Brazil and other countries. J&amp;J Impact Ventures invested in Phelcom to accelerate the scaling of their devices to reach more patients around the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPhelcom\u2019s mission to dramatically improve eye health globally, especially in rural and resource-limited settings, is core to our goals,\u201d said Antonio Rodriguez, Portfolio Manager at Impact Ventures. \u201cTheir technology empowers health workers to deliver high-quality eye exams in a wide range of environments, and we are proud to support its growth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eye care is essential for overall well-being. But despite its importance, billions of people worldwide lack access to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-253708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}