Contact Lens Makers and Discounters Tussle Over Price Setting

nytimes.com - Anthony D. Morrow had been wearing the same brand of contact lenses for years, so when he saw the bill for his latest order last November, he did a double take.

Rather than $169 for a one-year supply — the price he had paid, more or less, for the previous three years — the new bill for his Acuvue Oasys lenses was $270, a 60 percent price increase.

Mr. Morrow, a marketing consultant in the Los Angeles area who describes himself as a “savvier-than-usual consumer,” started digging around. What he learned upset him even more: The $100 price increase resulted from a new policy by Johnson & Johnson, the maker of Acuvue lenses, which prohibited retailers from charging less than a minimum price set by the company.