Millions of people worldwide live with severe vision loss caused by retinal diseases. For many of them, existing treatments cannot restore sight once the damage reaches late stages. Now, a neural engineering startup believes brain-computer interface technology could change that.
Science, a US-based neural engineering company, has raised $230 million in a Series C funding round to accelerate the commercial launch of its retinal implant technology and expand clinical trials.
The round was backed by existing investors, including Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Y Combinator, IQT, and Quiet Capital, among others.
The funding round was oversubscribed, meaning investor demand exceeded the company’s capital needs. With this raise, Science has now secured roughly $490 million in total funding since its founding in 2021.
Fund deployment
The funding allows the company to advance the commercialisation of its BCI retinal implant, PRIMA, and other key programs into clinical trials.
PRIMA was the only treatment in previous trials to restore form vision to patients blinded by late-stage macular degeneration, and the results were published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and featured on the cover of Time magazine.
“There is a profound sense in which the brain is the ultimate central object of medicine: it is the only organ which is not, even in principle, transplantable, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that engaging with it directly as an information processing system facilitates extraordinary effect sizes,” said Max Hodak, cofounder and CEO of Science. “We are deeply committed to research and new technologies that can provide treatment options where none existed before to drive fundamental improvements in the human condition.”
New clinical trials for additional retinal diseases
The company is also expanding its clinical research to target other inherited retinal diseases, including Stargardt disease and retinitis pigmentosa, which are among the leading causes of inherited vision loss in young adults.
Early-stage trials will be conducted at Sydney Eye Hospital in Australia under the leadership of Dr Matthew Simunovic, a specialist in retinal disease therapy and prosthetic vision research.
Restoring vision
PRIMA is designed to help people who have lost vision due to late-stage macular degeneration, a common cause of blindness in older adults.
The implant works by acting as artificial photoreceptors in the retina, converting visual signals into information the brain can interpret.
In clinical trials, the technology demonstrated promising results. According to the company, PRIMA became the first treatment to restore form vision in patients blinded by advanced macular degeneration. Findings from the study were published in The New England Journal of Medicine and were also featured on the cover of Time magazine.
The European trial evaluated the PRIMA system in 38 patients with advanced dry age-related macular degeneration. Results showed that 80% of participants experienced meaningful improvements in visual acuity, allowing them to read letters, numbers, and words.
Science has now submitted a CE mark application in Europe and is also pursuing regulatory approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“The strength and calibre of this syndicate reflects both the urgency of the problems we are addressing and the credibility of our execution so far,” said Darius Shahida, Science’s Chief Strategy Officer. “With this capital, we are focused on commercialisation and delivering real-world clinical impact. Our imperative is to become the first BCI company to scale and achieve profitability.”
