A retinal chip restores sight to the blind—Science Corp in the U.S. is beating Musk to the punch and will start selling in Europe

US brain-computer interface startup Science Corp announced that its retinal chip Prima has already secured the EU CE mark and is set to go on sale in Europe. Trial results published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that among 32 patients, 26 experienced clinically meaningful improvements in vision.
(Background: Changing the world again? Musk announced: Neuralink’s next product is for blindness! Will blind people regain their sight?)
(Background update: Meta’s cutting-edge tech: wearing a headset lets AI read your brain, with text accuracy climbing to 61%)

After the death of retinal center photoreceptor cells, patients only see a blur or a black hole in front of their eyes—this is “geographic atrophy,” meaning the late-stage form of age-related macular degeneration. It is the most common cause of blindness in older adults. There is currently no cure—only treatment to slow progression… but this situation is being pushed open by a single chip.

Science Corp CEO Max Hodak told Bloomberg that its Prima retinal chip has already received the EU CE mark, which is the authorization to market medical devices in the EU. Once obtained, it can be sold across the entire European Union and European Economic Area, without needing separate applications country by country.

Earlier, the company also announced its European commercial launch, setting the timeline for August. The first commercial implant is likely to take place in Germany. This year, the plan is to implant dozens of people; next year, the target is raised to about 200 people. Pricing has not been set and will vary by region and insurance plans.

Supporting this timeline is a set of clinical data published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine. Among 32 late-stage patients who completed 12 months of follow-up, 26 had clinically meaningful improvements in vision—enough to identify letters, numbers, and words again.

How does Prima work, and what kind of blindness does it treat

The Prima system consists of two parts: a wireless photovoltaic chip implanted behind the eyeball, under the retina, and a custom pair of glasses with a built-in camera and a miniature projector. In simple terms, the glasses first capture the scene in front of the eyes, then project the image onto the chip. The chip converts the image into electrical signals using light power, to stimulate the still-living cells in the retina—helping the brain “see” the outline of the image again.

It targets the disease geographic atrophy, the late-stage form of age-related macular degeneration, which is the most common cause of blindness in older adults.

At present, there are drugs that can slow the worsening of macular degeneration, but none can reverse it. Prima is the first commercial device for this late-stage phase, proven to restore “form vision” in some patients. Geographic atrophy is common in people aged 70 and above. As the global population ages, this patient group will only continue to grow—which is why Hodak specifically emphasized that Europe alone has hundreds of thousands of potential beneficiaries.

Second place in market cap—so why is it Science Corp that sells first?

In the US brain-computer interface space, Science Corp is only the second-ranked player, with a market cap of $1.5 billion, while ahead of it stands Neuralink, founded by Musk and currently drawing even more attention. But the company that turned implanted products into sellable goods and got them into clinics to start selling first is Science Corp.

Hodak is one of Neuralink’s co-founders. After leaving in 2021, he branched out with a focus on visual restoration, which is less difficult but has a much larger patient population, rather than directly challenging more complex brain signals such as language and movement. This choice allows Science Corp to sidestep America’s lengthy approval process by making the CE mark the first breakthrough.

With a single EU license, it can cover the market across the entire European Union and European Economic Area—far faster than conducting review on a state-by-state and case-by-case basis in the US. With the same chip, if it were first queued up in the US, the approval process alone could drag on for several more years. Going through the European CE mark instead effectively bypasses that longest hurdle, forcing forward the commercialization timeline.

Capital was also not absent. Science Corp has raised a cumulative $489 million. In March this year, Bloomberg reported that its valuation reached $1.5 billion. This money allows the company to fund both the retinal chip and its next-generation device that uses engineering neurons to interface with brain tissue. Meanwhile, it sells products to generate cash flow, while continuing to push deeper into brain-computer interface technology.