Science Corporation implants PRIMA vision chip in first Stargardt patient
Science Corporation said at TechCrunch Disrupt that its vision-restoring chip, PRIMA, has been implanted in its first patient with Stargardt disease, an inherited eye disease that destroys central vision; the procedure took place in May at the Sydney Eye Hospital in Australia as part of an ongoing trial. A roughly 2-by-2-millimeter chip is placed where photoreceptors have degenerated, and patients wear camera-equipped glasses; during the first rehabilitation session the patient saw a letter, and in the second could read a word. The company says PRIMA is already commercially available in Europe for geographic atrophy, an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration, and it believes the approach can extend to Stargardt disease, which affects about 150,000 people worldwide who have lost vision. CEO Max Hodak, a former Neuralink president and co-founder, said a next-generation implant should reach human testing within a year and that the company hopes to approach native acuity over about five years.
If it progresses as planned, retinal prosthetics could offer a commercial treatment path for currently incurable inherited eye disease and build clinical experience for broader brain-computer interfaces.
Science Corporation CEO Max Hodak announced that the company has implanted its vision-restoring chip, PRIMA, into its first patient with Stargardt disease, an inherited eye disease that gradually destroys central vision. Hodak, the former president and co-founder of Neuralink, the brain implant company, explained onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt how the company’s work with PRIMA fits into its broader pursuit of a novel brain-computer interface (BCI).
“The retina is part of the central nervous system,” Hodak said. “We consider cochlear implants, retinal prostheses, motor prostheses, these are all different types of BCIs.”
Hodak outlined a vision in which BCIs expand into a wide range of medical technology applications, rather than simply being a way to control computers.
While PRIMA is commercially available in Europe for patients who’ve lost their sight to geographic atrophy, an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration, the company believes its approach can be applied to multiple diseases, including Stargardt disease, which is currently considered incurable.
Stargardt disease affects the outer retina, causing the gradual death of the eye’s light-sensing cells while potentially sparing the inner retina, the part that passes visual signals onto the brain. It causes a central blind spot that gradually enlarges over time. Approximately 150,000 people worldwide have lost vision due to the disease.
#Science Corporation#PRIMA#Max Hodak#Neuralink#Sydney Eye Hospital