How Pixium Vision’s Bionic Vision Systems Can Be A New Hope For The Blind

Pixium Vision’s Prima System improves dry age-related macular degeneration patient’s ability to identify letters and sequence of letters.

The use of technology to aid the blind has seen a journey from chunky hardware and screen readers to more advanced and seamless methods currently powering rapid developments in computer vision and voice recognition.

Today, companies around the world are using everything from genetics and bionics to stem-cell therapy in a bid to ease day-to-day life for the visually-impaired, including France-based Pixium Vision.

Founded in 2011, the company has developed innovative bionic vision system, known as Prima, to enable patients who have lost their sight to lead more independent lives.

CEO Lloyd Diamond said: “Our system is the only bionic vision system in clinical testing targeting dry-age macular degeneration.

“By implanting the chip directly at the level of photoreceptors [sub-retinal implantation], the subretinal stimulations target the bipolar cells first, before signals reach the gaglion cells, therefore we are aiming for a more precise and physiological signal processing.

“The surgical procedure is also minimally-invasive which differ significantly from the previous retinal implant generation and enable the Prima System to be clinically-tested in dry-age macular degeneration patients.” – NS Medical Devices