Jeremy Kudon Discusses His Work for Telemedicine Startup Simple Contacts

Jeremy Kudon, the founder of Orrick’s Public Policy team, recently spoke to The Wall Street Journal [subscription required] about his work on behalf of telemedicine startup Simple Contacts. Simple Contacts created an app that allows people to renew contact lens prescriptions by completing a short online vision exam. However, optometrists have been lobbying to ban the prescription of contacts through telemedicine, arguing that the technology could be unsafe.

Jeremy was enlisted by Simple Contacts to fight the accusations being leveled by optometrists against Simple Eyes and to prevent legislative barriers from being passed. According to Jeremy, because Simple Contacts is reliant on early-stage financing, the app faces more of an uphill battle than other startups – especially in light of the considerable resources at the disposal of the optometrist lobby.

“You have to make every single dollar count,” Jeremy said, adding, “You have to stretch it so much farther than when you have more funding.” Nonetheless, Jeremy noted that Simple Contacts is one of the earliest-stage start-ups he has ever seen take up a multistate legislative effort.