Pixium Vision has been awarded CE mark for its IRIS II bionic vision system, making it approved for people with vision loss from outer retinal degeneration. The 150-electrode epi-retinal implant features a design intended to be explantable and upgradeable.

IRIS II incorporates the following features:

• A bio-inspired camera intended to mimic the functioning of the human eye by continuously capturing the changes in a visual scene with its time independent pixels, and unlike an imaging sensor that takes a sequence of video frames with largely redundant information.
• An epi-retinal implant with 150 electrodes – almost three times the number of electrodes than previous version.
• An explantable design: the electrode array is secured on the retinal surface by a patented support system that is intended to allow for explantation or future replacements or upgrades.

The IRIS II system is only available by medical prescription. Several leading ophthalmology centers in Europe are continuing to evaluate the system’s long-term performance based on a pre-defined protocol.

In parallel, Pixium Vision is developing a tiny, wireless, sub-retinal photovoltaic implant for patients with AMD (age-related macular degeneration).