First patient with Stargardt disease receives PRIMA vision implant

👁 First patient with Stargardt disease receives PRIMA vision implant

Science Corporation, Max Hodak, announced on October 13, 2026, at TechCrunch Disrupt that in May, the PRIMA subretinal implant was implanted in the first patient with Stargardt disease: in the first rehabilitation session, he saw a letter, and in the second, he read a word.

🌍 The 2×2 mm chip is already sold in Europe for geographic atrophy (NEJM: 84% of 32 patients were reading by 12 months), and now the approach has been confirmed for hereditary vision loss as well.

👤 Stargardt disease affects about 150,000 people worldwide and begins in childhood — this is the first step toward restoring reading for young patients, not just the elderly with macular dystrophy.

Source 1: https://science.xyz/news/stargardt-first-rehab/ Source 2: https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/13/science-corporation-implants-its-vision-restoring-chip-in-its-first-stargardt-disease-patient/