Systems and methods for producing silicone hydrogel contact lenses

A method for producing a non-surface treated wettable silicone hydrogel contact lens, comprising:

• forming a plurality of mold sections from a polymer-based material, said mold sections comprising a first mold section having a first lens forming region including an optical quality concave surface, and a second mold section having a second lens forming region including an optical quality convex surface, wherein each of the lens forming regions of the mold sections includes the polymer-based material;
• placing a lens precursor composition that comprises at least one silicon-containing monomer on the optical quality concave surface of the first mold section;
• placing the second mold section on the first mold section so that the optical quality convex surface of the second mold section and the optical quality concave surface of the first mold section form a contact lens shaped cavity;
• welding the second mold section and the first mold section together to form a welded contact lens mold assembly;
• thereafter
• polymerizing the lens precursor composition in the contact lens shaped cavity to form a silicone hydrogel contact lens;
• separating the second mold section and the first mold section of the welded contact lens mold assembly comprising placing a wedge, having a knife edge, between the first mold section and second mold section to separate the second mold section from the first mold section;
• contacting the silicone hydrogel contact lens with a liquid to detach the lens from a surface of the mold section;
• removing the detached silicone hydrogel contact lens from either the first mold section or the second mold section, the removing step comprising applying negative pressure to a surface of the detached silicone hydrogel contact lens retained on the mold section using a vacuum apparatus to separate the contact lens from the mold section;
• displacing the silicone hydrogel contact lens from a surface of the vacuum apparatus onto a tray;
• extracting extractable components from the silicone hydrogel contact lens;
• and
• placing the silicone hydrogel contact lens in an aqueous medium to hydrate the silicone hydrogel contact lens, wherein the hydrated silicone hydrogel contact lens is free of a surface treatment and has wettable surfaces.