[4][5] The company was founded in Rochester, New York, in 1853 by optician John Bausch and cabinet maker turned financial backer Henry Lomb.

[6] Bausch + Lomb was a public company listed on the NYSE, until it was acquired by private equity firm Warburg Pincus in 2007.

In May 2013, Canadian-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals announced that it would acquire Bausch + Lomb from Warburg Pincus for $4.5 billion in cash.

[11] As of 2022, the company employs about 12,900 people,[1] and manufactures and markets health care products directly or indirectly in approximately 100 countries.

[12] In 1853, John Bausch and Henry Lomb, both German immigrants, established a small but ambitious workshop producing monocles in Rochester, New York.

[15] During the American Civil War, the Union blockade caused the price of gold and European horn to rise dramatically.

In 1902, William Bausch, the son of the founder, developed a process to create the desired lens shape directly by casting molten glass.

Previously, the glass parts for the lenses had to be separated, ground and polished in a complicated process, and this brought significant savings in time and materials.

The outbreak of the war, with Germany's new enemy status, created a scramble to rapidly enhance the domestic industries.

In 1965 Bausch & Lomb acquired the patent for the hydrogel contact lenses created by Czech scientists Otto Wichterle and Drahoslav Lím.

By the planned acquisition of other firms, such as Polymer Technology Corporation and Dr. Mann Pharma, existing business areas such as contact lens production were strengthened and new ones were initiated.

The manufacturing of contact lenses still accounted for 28% of Bausch & Lomb's turnover in 2001, making it its main business activity.

Lenses from the "Boston" range have a higher oxygen permeability and are more suited for people with sensitive or dry eyes.

On June 26, 2002, a federal judge ruled that Bausch & Lomb did infringe on Ciba Vision (a subsidiary of Alcon) patents.

On April 11, 2006, Bausch & Lomb stopped shipments of its ReNu with MoistureLoc contact lens solution when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced there was a high correlation between use of the product and cases of suspected fungal keratitis.

[30] Bausch & Lomb received a 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign starting in 2003, the second year of the report.

[32] In 2009, Bausch & Lomb spent $250 million to settle six hundred lawsuits filed by consumers exposed to Fusarium keratitis, a fungal infection, after using its contact solution ReNu with MoistureLoc.