Artificial Retinal Devices Help The Blind To See

By Tracy Neilssien (Contributor) / Email the Author / START-UP January 2012, Vol. 17, No. 1
Grouped Start-Ups / Word Count: 2816 / Article # 2012900016

Executive Summary

Worldwide rates of all diseases that cause blindness are expected to double by 2020 due to the aging population, making this an area ripe for medical device innovation. A multibillion-dollar market has been built around the surgical correction of "front of the eye" age-related vision disorders such as presbyopia, but the technological evolution in ophthalmology has now reached the back of the eye. Artificial retinal prostheses are an increasingly popular area of investigation. Start-ups hoping to enter this market face daunting R&D, clinical and regulatory hurdles, and will require significant resources. We profile three such companies in this issue: 2C Tech Corp., LambdaVision and Nano Retina.