Ben Park, Ph.D.
LAKE FOREST, Calif.—STAAR Surgical Company (NASDAQ: STAA), the global leader in phakic IOLs with the EVO family of Implantable Collamer Lenses (EVO ICL) for vision correction, has announced the appointment of Ben Park, Ph.D., as the new chief technology officer (CTO). Park joins STAAR from Align Technology, Inc., a global medical device company, where he served as head of emerging technology since 2018. Park will join STAAR’s executive committee and report to Warren Foust, president and CEO, according to the announcement.
“Evolving STAAR from a single-product focus into a multi-product platform is central to our strategy—and requires the right leader,” said Foust. “Ben Park is that leader. We have been delivering on revenue growth and profitability, and now it’s time to match that momentum with equal urgency on innovation. With our R&D and advanced research teams preparing for first-in-human studies of our next-generation products, the moment to accelerate is now. Ben’s track record of success in building and commercializing breakthrough medical device platforms makes him the ideal person to advance our innovation roadmap and unlock the full potential of our proprietary Collamer technology.”
While at Align Technology, Park built and led a global multidisciplinary team—spanning biomedical engineering, hardware, embedded systems, and software across the U.S. and Asia-Pacific markets to define next generation product platforms and address unmet clinical needs, from concept through to market launch.
“STAAR has built something genuinely rare, a clinically proven product portfolio with over 30 years of real-world results, a proprietary material that no one else has, and a market opportunity that is only growing as myopia becomes one of the defining health challenges of our time,” said Park. “What drew me here is the ambition to go further: to take everything STAAR has learned and apply it across myopia and beyond. I see a real opportunity to build a multi-product platform by bringing a fresh perspective to how we identify and solve unmet clinical needs. This team is ready to execute, and I’m energized to help accelerate what we can deliver together—for surgeons, for patients, and for the future of refractive surgery.”
Prior to Align Technology, Park served as CTO of Fingertips Lab, Inc., where he led the development and commercial launch of a health technology product designed for the visually impaired in markets across more than 10 countries. Prior to Fingertips Lab, he served as chief technologist at Volcano Corporation, where he led the development of a novel intracardiac imaging platform. He also co-founded Fluid Medical, Inc., where he invented a new intravascular ultrasound imaging platform utilizing shape memory alloy materials and forged strategic development partnerships with Boston Scientific and Olympus Corporation.
According to the company, Park is set to join other STAAR executives and leaders at the upcoming 44th Congress of the ESCRS in London from September 11–15, 2026, the company noted.
Last month, STAAR delivered net sales totaling $93.5 million for the second quarter of 2026, up 111 percent from $44.3 million in the prior-year quarter. China accounted for more than half of quarterly revenue at $52.3 million and was the principal growth driver, the company reported.
