Science Corporation Implants Vision Chip in First Stargardt Patient

Science Corporation has implanted its PRIMA vision-restoring chip into its first patient with Stargardt disease, an inherited condition that gradually destroys central vision. The implantation took place in May as part of an ongoing clinical trial at Sydney Eye Hospital in Australia, according to TechCrunch. CEO Max Hodak, a former president and co-founder of Neuralink, announced the development on October 13, 2026, at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco.

Early Rehabilitation Results

Stargardt disease affects the outer retina, causing the gradual death of light-sensing cells while potentially sparing the inner retina, which transmits visual signals to the brain. Approximately 150,000 people worldwide have lost vision due to the disease, which is currently considered incurable.

According to Hodak, the patient recognized a letter during the first rehabilitation session and was able to read a word during the second. "One of the nice things about this device approach, when I was saying the brain’s a computer, vision is electrical potential, like electrical activity down the optic nerve," Hodak said. "That’s all vision is to the brain, and so if you can get the optic nerve to signal the rest of the brain correctly, then you can provide vision to it."

How the PRIMA Implant Works

The PRIMA system involves an hourlong procedure to place a small chip at the back of the eye, where photoreceptors have degenerated. Patients wear camera-equipped glasses that transmit a view of the world to the chip, which functions as artificial photoreceptors.

The current device measures two millimeters by two millimeters. "The device that this patient has is a two millimeter by two millimeter implant placed in the back of the eye, and so it’s like looking through a straw," Hodak said. "It is not a big field of view color vision. It’s a patch in their central vision where … it’s black and white, but it is sharp. It’s high-contrast sharp, and so they can see a couple letters at a time."

PRIMA is already commercially available in Europe for patients who have lost sight due to geographic atrophy, an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration. The company believes the approach can be applied to multiple diseases, including Stargardt disease.

Future Development and Broader Strategy

Science Corporation is working on a next-generation device intended to enter human testing within the next year. The company aims to increase the field of view and reduce electrode dimensions to improve visual detail. "The next step is to make the field of view bigger. So to make a bigger implant, you have to deal with the curvature of the eye, and we need to make the electrodes smaller so that we get closer to native levels of detail," Hodak said. He predicted the company could get "pretty close to native acuity" over the next five years.

Hodak described retinal prostheses as one type of brain-computer interface (BCI), alongside cochlear and motor prostheses. "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."

Science Corporation, founded in 2021, is also developing a BCI sensor designed to sit inside the skull and on top of the brain, rather than being inserted into brain tissue. The company has stated this technology could help address neurological conditions, including monitoring activity in patients with brain tumors. Hodak noted that the company’s longer-term mission is to understand how the brain creates the mind and to learn to build engineered brains.

Why it matters

This implantation represents an early step in evaluating PRIMA’s potential for Stargardt disease, a condition with no current cure. While the reported ability to read a word is preliminary evidence from an individual patient, it suggests the implant can deliver useful visual information. Success in broader clinical trials could establish retinal prosthetics as a practical medical technology for various forms of vision loss, while supporting Science Corporation’s wider neural engineering ambitions.

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Sources

• techcrunch.com: Science Corporation implants its vision-restoring chip in its first Stargardt disease patient | TechCrunch
• konsulteer.com: Science Corporation Implants PRIMA Vision Chip in First Patient With Stargardt Disease — Konsulteer
• ua.news: Science Corporation implants PRIMA in Stargardt patient — TechCrunch | UA.NEWS
• mezha.net: Science Corporation implants PRIMA vision chip in first patient with Stargardt disease | Межа

This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.