The CEO of Second Sight Medical (NSDQ:EYES), Dr. Robert Greenberg, told MassDevice.com today that the company could have a device on the market "within a couple of years" that could treat nearly all forms of blindness.
Second Sight, which yesterday saw its shares close up nearly 122% after its public trading debut, makes the Argus II device, a so-called "bionic eye" that uses an eyeglass-mounted camera and an electrical stimulator implanted in the eye to convert and wirelessly transmit video images to an electrode array on the surface of the retina. The Argus II won pre-market approval from the FDA in February 2013 for treating patients with late-stage retinitis pigmentosa.
Greenberg told MassDevice.com that Second Sight’s next-generation device, the Orion, would bypass the retina with an electrode array implanted directly on the portion of the brain that deals with signals from the retina. That would effectively bypass the optic nerve entirely, opening the device up to treating people with most forms of blindness, including glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and even trauma, Greenberg told us.
"The only ones we wouldn’t be able to treat would be someone who had a stroke that damaged that part of their brain tissue," he said. "We think we can be in patients within a couple years with that device."
Second Sight priced its IPO yesterday at $9 per share, but shortly after its debut a little past noon, EYES shares had surged some 149.4% to a high of $22.45 apiece. The stock closed up 121.9% at $19.97 per share and was on the rise again today, peaking at $23.85. EYES shares were trading at $23.34 apiece as of about noon today, up 16.9% on the day and a whopping 159.3% over the IPO’s asking price.
Given the premium investors are placing on the stock, we asked Greenberg whether he wished Sylmar, Calif.-based Second Sight had aimed a little higher with its pricing.
"Whenever there are that many folks interested in what you’re doing, and want to be a part of it, it’s a good thing. So no regrets at all," he told us. "We considered various options for financing over the last year, and felt after the FDA approval for the [Argus II] that an IPO would give us the opportunity to raise the profile of the company and help get the word out for this product. I’m always amazed that, despite 1,000 patients calling us after the FDA approval was announced, I still meet patients that haven’t heard of us."
Listen to Dr. Robert Greenberg the 20-year odyssey to FDA approval for the Argus II:
Greenberg said his goal since Day 1 of Second Sight has been to treat nearly all cases of blindness.
"I’ve always been confident that it’s been achievable," he said, citing early, hard-wired experiments by others that demonstrated proof of concept, advances in brain mapping that showed how the retinal portion is wired and the advent of wireless technologies.
That early work "really showed they really showed the core principle with those early experiments," Greenberg said.
"We know the mapping, more or less, in humans. The thought is that we can take the same implant that we have in the retina and place it, with a bigger electrode array, on the surface of the brain," he told us. "With that we’ll be able to treat patients whose optic nerve has been damaged."