Company: STAA
Filing Date: 2025-11-06
Form Type: PX14A6G
Source: 0001193125-25-269485
Chunk: 1

Company: STAAR SURGICAL CO
Filing Date: 2025-11-06
Form: PX14A6G
Chunk 1
---
 the Board is
as follows:

November 6, 2025

STAAR Surgical Company

25510 Commercentre Drive

Lake Forest, CA 92630

Dear Members of the Board:

I congratulate the Board on STAAR
Surgical’s strong results for the third quarter ended September 26, 2025, released after market closing on November 5, 2025. We are especially encouraged to see that STAAR has demonstrated not only operational momentum but also cost
discipline progress – beating cost guidance while strengthening its cash position – precisely the combination that positions the Company to capture the full value of its growth trajectory. Reported operating expenses were
$59.4 million; excluding $5.9 million of merger-related costs with Alcon, the underlying run rate was $53.5 million – annualizing to $214 million and beating prior guidance of $225 million. While these savings are
welcome, they represent only the beginning of STAAR’s efficiency potential. Separately, the Company’s balance sheet strengthened sequentially, with cash, cash equivalents, and investments rising to $192.7 million from
$189.9 million at the end of the second quarter, despite ongoing merger expenses.

STAAR’s robust third quarter results provide just the latest
support for our view that STAAR’s operational and financial challenges have reflected temporary headwinds rather than structural weaknesses. The results demonstrate our longstanding view that there is solid and accelerating demand for the
Company’s ICL technology in China, and around the world, and that recent challenges affecting the Company’s business in China stemmed from short-term distributor inventory adjustments. The Company itself was making these points to
shareholders until not long before it announced the proposed merger with Alcon.

While ICL shipments underlying third quarter results occurred in December 2024, the fact that the related
ICL procedures took place throughout 2025 reflects the recovery of the Chinese market, and further that STAAR has trusted products and established sales channels to capitalize on this large and growing opportunity. It was also predictable that sales
in China for the first three quarters of 2025 were going to be lower than sales in the prior year – not as a result of long-term contraction in patient demand or physician activity, but because distributors were
right-sizing their inventories. Again, the Company itself had been making this point to shareholders until shortly before announcing the proposed merger with Alcon.

In sum, the Company’s third quarter results put into even sharper relief the opportunistic nature of Alcon’s