Intelligent Medical Implants AG, a Switzerland-based company, announced that its first-generation Learning Retinal Implant System, containing a 50-electrode device, was successfully implanted in two patients in December 2005.

IMI’s Learning Retinal Implant System replaces the signal-processing functions of a healthy retina and provides input to the retinal nerve cells.

The System comprises three main components:

1. an implant, “The Retinal Stimulator”, which is surgically placed into the eye of a patient, who:

2. wears a pair of spectacles containing an integrated mini-camera and transmitter components for wireless signal and energy transmission (“The Visual Interface”). Via a cable, the spectacles are connected to:

3. “The Pocket Processor” worn at the patient’s waist. This device replaces the information processing function of the formally healthy retina.

The use of a high-speed digital signal processor allows the provision of “intelligent information” to the implant (and the nerve cells) by using tuneable software to approximate the information processing normally carried out by the healthy retina. The entire process enables patients to optimize their visual perception during the learning phase. Indeed, using the patient’s feedback on perception as an input for the tuning of The Pocket Processor is the unique, patent-protected feature of the System and constitutes the ‘learning’ capability of the Learning Retinal Implant System.