Second Sight Medical Products Inc., a developer, manufacturer and marketer of implantable visual prosthetics, announced its Board of Directors has appointed Gregg Williams as chairman, effective immediately. Williams, a current board member and the company’s largest shareholder, succeeds Dr. Robert “Bob” Greenberg, who has served as board chairman since August 2015 and who remains a board member.
 
“It has been my pleasure to work alongside Bob in his role as chairman and we appreciate his contributions in this leadership position as we have advanced Second Sight’s mission of treating all forms of blindness,” stated Will McGuire, president and CEO of Second Sight. “As a valued member of our Board of Directors, Gregg provides thoughtful leadership, extensive business expertise and a focus on commercial success to the Second Sight team. I look forward to continuing to work closely with Gregg and other members of the board as we execute our commercial and R&D strategies to deliver innovative technologies for the blind that build shareholder value.”
 
“Over the last several years, under the leadership of Will McGuire, the company has built a team that has successfully transitioned Second Sight from a predominantly R&D focused organization to a fully capable commercial operation. The team’s demonstrated achievements in growing the number of worldwide Argus II Retinal Prosthesis Systems (Argus II), continued advancement and clinical testing of next generation Argus II technology aimed at treating better vision individuals, and now the highly encouraging initial clinical results of the potentially revolutionary Orion Cortical Visual Prosthesis System, provides me with great conviction that Second Sight is on the right path. I am confident that through our efforts to deliver products that potentially can treat nearly all forms of blindness, we will build and deliver strong long-term value to our shareholders. I look forward to continuing to work with the rest of the board, Will, and his management team to accelerate our progress towards full commercial success,” Williams said in his first official statement as board chairman.
 
Williams joined Second Sight’s Board of Directors in June 2009. He has served as the as chairman, president, and CEO of Williams International Corporation since April 2005. He also serves as a director of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association.
 
Second Sight develops, manufactures and markets implantable visual prosthetics to enable blind individuals to achieve greater independence. Second Sight has developed, and now manufactures and markets, the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System. Development of new hardware and software intended to improve the quality of the vision produced by the Argus system is ongoing. Second Sight is also developing the Orion Visual Cortical Prosthesis to restore some vision to individuals who are blind due to many causes other than preventable or treatable conditions. Second Sight’s U.S. headquarters is in Sylmar, Calif., and its European headquarters is in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Second Sight's Argus II System provides electrical stimulation that bypasses defunct retinal cells and stimulates remaining viable cells inducing visual perception in individuals with severe to profound retinitis pigmentosa (RP). The Argus II works by converting images captured by a miniature video camera mounted on the patient's glasses into a series of small electrical pulses, which are transmitted wirelessly to an array of electrodes implanted on the surface of the retina. These pulses stimulate the retina's remaining cells, intending to result in the perception of patterns of light in the brain. The patient must learn to interpret these visual patterns, having the potential to regain some visual function. The Argus II was the first artificial retina to receive widespread commercial approval, and is offered at approved centers in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
 
Like the Argus II, the Orion converts images captured by a miniature video camera mounted on the patient's glasses into a series of small electrical pulses. The Orion is designed to transmit these electrical pulses wirelessly to an array of electrodes implanted on the surface of the visual cortex, intended to result in the perception of patterns of light. By bypassing the retina and optic nerve and directly stimulating the visual cortex, a cortical prosthesis system has the potential to restore useful vision to many more patients than the Argus II, including patients completely blinded due to many reasons, including glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, or forms of cancer and trauma. The company has initiated a feasibility study in the United States at two centers: the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. The first-in-human subject was implanted and activated as part of the first-in-human clinical studies with the Orion in 2018. No clinical data is yet available for the Orion.