While several companies and laboratories around the world are at various stages of bionic-retina development, Pixium Vision located in France, is progressing impressively down two paths for these high-tech, vision-restoring systems. Both approaches show strong, near-term potential for providing meaningful vision to people who are otherwise blind from retinal diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Pixium recently announced that its IRIS®II bionic vision system received a CE Mark, the regulatory approval necessary for marketing medical devices and other products in Europe. The IRIS II is further down the company’s clinical development pipeline than its more technologically advanced PRIMA system, which was originally conceptualized by researchers at Stanford University, and is expected to enter a clinical trial later this year for AMD.
Steve is highly respected for his expertise and tireless commitment to finding treatments and cures for vision-robbing retinal diseases. 
As the Foundation's Senior Director of Communi-cations, Ben writes science and research articles for the Foundation’s website, newsletters and Eye on the Cure blog.