New funding follows impressive vision restoration results in advanced AMD patients using retinal implant system.
Neurotech firm Science Corporation has reportedly raised more than $100 million in funding led by Khosla Ventures. The company, founded by Neuralink co-founder Max Hodak, is a leading player in the emerging brain-computer interface (BCI) sector.
According to Bloomberg, the new funding, which adds to the $186 million reportedly already raised by Science Corp, will accelerate the development of the company’s BCI technologies and the commercialization of its products. The company is leveraging neural engineering to create devices designed to restore vision, communication and cognition.
Vision restoration is Science Corp’s most advanced program, including the PRIMA retinal implant technology it acquired last year from Pixium Vision. The PRIMA system is designed to restore vision for patients with geographic atrophy, a severe form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) that results in central vision loss. The technology includes a miniature, wireless implant placed under the retina, a pair of specially designed glasses equipped with a camera and projection system, and a pocket processor that enhances image quality and magnification.
Visual information captured by the glasses is converted into near-infrared light and projected onto the implant. The implant, composed of hundreds of independently controlled, light-powered pixels, transforms the light into electrical signals that stimulate the retina’s remaining cells, enabling the brain to perceive visual forms. This direct retinal stimulation bypasses the degenerated photoreceptors typically lost in advanced AMD.
Originally developed at Stanford University and further advanced by Pixium before its acquisition by Science Corp, the PRIMA implant is progressing toward regulatory approval in Europe. Last year, the company reported preliminary results from a European clinical trial, which involved 38 patients with severe central vision loss due to geographic atrophy. Patients who received the PRIMA implant demonstrated a clinically meaningful improvement in visual acuity, particularly in their ability to read sequences of letters and recognize faces – tasks that were previously impossible for them.
“To my knowledge, this is the first time that restoration of the ability to fluently read has ever been definitively shown in blind patients,” said Hodak at the time.
“For the first time it was possible to restore real form vision in a retina that has deteriorated due to age-related macular degeneration,” said University of Bonn Professor Frank Holz, who led the study. “Prior to this, there have been no real treatment options to improve vision for these patients.”
