French company Pixium Vision, which is developing vision restoration systems, announced on Wednesday the success of a first implant operation in a patient, with its new epi-retinal implant product “Iris II”, which it hopes to market. from Europe in mid-2016.
Equipped with 150 electrodes, three times the prototype “Iris I”, to artificially stimulate the deficient retina and to restore vision of shapes and movements, “Iris II” is intended for patients who become blind due to retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative genetic disease that affects between 20,000 and 40,000 people in France, informs the France Presse agency.
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“This world premiere, performed on a 58-year-old patient, took place successfully,” said in a statement Prof. Michel Weber, head of the ophthalmology department at Nantes University Hospital, where the implant took place in January. this year.
“After years in the dark, the patient became active. He said he perceived the first light signals,” and will begin an adaptation program, in accordance with the clinical protocol, to learn to interpret these perceptions, Weber said.
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After the eight patients with the “Iris I” implant, the new “Iris II” model will be implanted in up to ten patients in several specialized centers in Europe, in this clinical study, according to Pixium.
The French company intends a commercial launch in Europe of “Iris II” by mid-2016, subject to obtaining the CE mark (in accordance with EU specifications on consumer safety and health, but also the environment), for which it submitted the file in December 2015 .
This young company, founded in 2012 and listed on the stock exchange since June 2014, is not the only employee in the race to achieve the “bionic eye”. The Californian company “Second Sight” already sells in Europe and the United States a similar implant called “Argus II”. Also, a German company called “Retina Implant” is in this competition, but the device produced by it is not yet available on the market.
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