Science Corp's PRIMA eye chip restores reading in first Stargardt disease patient, in Sydney trial

A tiny chip placed under the retina has let a patient blinded by Stargardt disease see a letter and then read a word, the first time Science Corporation's PRIMA implant has been used for this condition, TechCrunch reported. The surgery was done at Sydney Eye Hospital in Australia in May as part of an ongoing trial.

How PRIMA works

• The chip: 2mm by 2mm, placed under the retina where it acts as a set of artificial light-sensing cells (photoreceptors).
• The glasses: the patient wears camera glasses that beam the image onto the chip.
• The result: a small patch of central vision that is black and white but sharp and high in contrast. Chief executive Max Hodak compared it to "looking through a straw."
• The operation: about an hour.

In early rehabilitation the patient saw a letter in the first session and read a word in the second. TechCrunch reported this single case; no trial size or formal results have been published yet, so it is an early signal rather than proof.

Why Stargardt matters

Stargardt disease is inherited and wipes out central vision, often starting in children and young adults. About 150,000 people worldwide have lost vision to it and it is considered incurable.

Who is behind it

Science Corporation was founded in 2021 by Max Hodak, a co-founder and former president of Neuralink. PRIMA is already sold in Europe for geographic atrophy, an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration. Hodak says a next-generation device should be in humans within a year and that vision could approach normal sharpness within five years. The company is also building a brain-computer interface that sits on the brain's surface rather than inside it, as Neuralink's does.

What it means for patients here

PRIMA is not available or approved in Pakistan and costs have not been published. Families dealing with inherited eye disease should see a retina specialist at a teaching hospital; our directory lists hospitals in Lahore and Karachi.