Taiwan's own contact lens maker couldn't survive the price war it helped start

Camax Optical (加美光學), founded in 1985, was one of Taiwan's original domestic contact lens makers, known for MIT-branded colored lenses produced at its own plants in Zhunan and Hualien. It had competed for four decades in a category — fashion-driven colored contacts — that Taiwanese consumers had made a genuine local industry.

In early April 2025, distribution partners were quietly told shipments were halting, described internally as staff taking leave around a shareholder meeting. By May, the company confirmed a full suspension of operations, citing 'sustained annual losses that could not be supported,' and applied for formal dissolution.

Even winding the company down proved difficult: two shareholder meetings called to pass a dissolution resolution failed to reach quorum. Camax committed to refunding unshipped prepayments and settling outstanding receivables in phases, while industry coverage framed the closure as a warning for the rest of Taiwan's contact lens manufacturers, squeezed by international brands, price wars and tighter regulation.