Science Corp implants PRIMA chip in Stargardt patient

Science Corporation has implanted its PRIMA visual prosthesis into a patient with Stargardt disease for the first time. The surgical procedure took place in May at the Sydney Eye Hospital in Australia as part of an ongoing clinical trial. During the first rehabilitation session following the one-hour procedure, the patient successfully recognized a letter, and by the second session, was able to read a full word.

Founded in 2021 by CEO Max Hodak, the former president and co-founder of Neuralink, Science Corporation designed the PRIMA hardware as a two millimeter by two millimeter chip implanted under the back of the eye. The system functions alongside camera-equipped glasses to replace damaged photoreceptors. Although the device presently offers a limited black-and-white visual field described as looking through a straw, it provides critical visual function for a disease affecting approximately 150,000 people globally.

The PRIMA device is already commercially available in Europe for patients suffering from geographic atrophy, an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration. To address field-of-view constraints and eye curvature, the company is engineering next-generation implants with smaller electrodes. Hodak expects this updated hardware to enter human trials within the next year, with the broader goal of approaching native visual acuity within five years.

Beyond ophthalmology, Science Corporation is leveraging its view of the central nervous system to develop broader brain-computer interface applications. Unlike Neuralink's approach of inserting electrodes directly into brain tissue, the company's planned brain sensor sits inside the skull on top of the brain to target stroke recovery and unannounced neurodegenerative conditions. For medical practitioners, this demonstrates how specialized BCI architectures can target specific neural pathways to deliver functional therapeutic outcomes today while building scalable clinical platforms for tomorrow.