Science Corporation CEO Max Hodak announced at TechCrunch Disrupt that the company has implanted its vision-restoring chip, PRIMA, in its first patient with Stargardt disease, an inherited eye disease that gradually destroys central vision. The patient received the implant in May as part of an ongoing trial at Sydney Eye Hospital in Australia. In the first rehabilitation session, the patient saw a letter; in the second, he was able to read a word, the company says.

PRIMA is a two-millimeter by two-millimeter chip placed in the back of the eye, where photoreceptors have degenerated, during an hour-long procedure. Patients then wear camera-equipped glasses that transmit a view of the world to the chip, which acts as artificial photoreceptors. Hodak described the current experience as a sharp, high-contrast black-and-white patch in central vision, like looking through a straw, with only a few letters visible at a time. The next-generation device is being designed with a larger implant that handles the curvature of the eye and smaller electrodes to get closer to native levels of detail. Hodak expects it to reach humans in the next year and said that within five years the company should be able to get “pretty close to native acuity.”

The company points out that PRIMA is already commercially available in Europe for patients who have lost sight to geographic atrophy, an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration. Stargardt disease, which is currently considered incurable, affects the outer retina and causes gradual death of light-sensing cells while potentially sparing the inner retina that passes visual signals to the brain. It produces a central blind spot that enlarges over time, and roughly 150,000 people worldwide have lost vision from it.

Hodak framed the work as part of a broader brain-computer interface strategy. “The retina is part of the central nervous system,” he said, adding that cochlear implants, retinal prostheses, and motor prostheses are all types of BCIs. He described a future where BCIs expand into a wide range of medical technology applications, rather than only controlling computers. He also noted that “vision is electrical potential… That’s all vision is to the brain,” and that if the optic nerve can signal the rest of the brain correctly, vision can be provided.

Science Corporation‘s separate BCI sensor, previously described by the company, will be implanted inside the skull and rest on top of the brain, unlike a Neuralink device that is inserted directly into brain tissue. Hodak said the company’s first clinical indication, which has not been announced publicly, is a neurodegenerative disease that “everybody’s heard of.” The company is also looking at stroke, where connecting into deep brain areas could eventually add new cortical areas, something he said is not possible with conventional electrodes.

Hodak founded Science Corporation in 2021 after leaving Neuralink, and he said the company first wants to prove its methods work and build a sustainable business, which is why it is starting with vision restoration. The long-term mission, he said, is to understand how the brain creates the mind and to learn to build engineered brains. He added that the company is not designing for healthy 40-year-olds, but believes many people will eventually need some kind of BCI by age 60 or 70, with the goal of extending health span, not just lifespan.