Second Sight Medical Products Inc.

Location: California, USA
Number of employees: 88
Year founded: 1998

Second Sight Medical Products Inc.
12744 San Fernando Road, Building 3
Sylmar, CA 91342
USA 

Website: www.2-sight.com

Second Sight has developed the first ever approved treatment to partially restore vision to blind people. The Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System is enabling some blind patients to perform visual tasks such as identifying doorways, following sidewalks and reading large-print words.

In a healthy eye, cells in the retina called photoreceptors convert light into electrochemical impulses that are sent to the brain, which processes them into images. Diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa cause blindness due to the death of those photoreceptors.

The Argus II involves an implant which is surgically inserted onto the retina. The patient wears glasses containing a camera; a small computer, worn on a belt, processes signals from the camera, and an antenna on the side of the glasses transmits them wirelessly to the implant. The implant sends electrical impulses to the brain, causing the patient to perceive patterns of light.

The system is not an exact replacement for natural vision, as patients often need to learn to interpret these patterns of light, and rates of progress vary. Second Sight is using feedback from patients to refine aspects of the image processing software, and is also working on enhancing image resolution by developing implants with more electrodes.

The Argus II is currently available in eight countries to treat blindness caused by conditions related to retinal degeneration. It could potentially also be used to treat macular degeneration. For the longer term, Second Sight is working on a cortical implant, which would enable nearly all causes of blindness to be treated.