EYES - Second Sight stock rises ~10% on $1.1M funding from NIH for artificial vision implant trial

• Second Sight Medical Products ( NASDAQ: EYES ) said it received the fourth year funding of $1.1M from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a trial of its artificial vision implant, Orion Visual Cortical Prosthesis System (Orion).
• The planned five-year grant is for a total $6.4M.
• The company added that it mainly uses the funds to pay UCLA and the Baylor College of Medicine to conduct the Orion trial.
• The company noted in a July 18 press release that Orion is an implanted cortical stimulation device intended to provide useful artificial vision to individuals who are blind due to a range of causes, including glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, optic nerve injury or disease, and eye injury.
• Orion is  aimed at converting images captured by a miniature video camera mounted on glasses into a series of small electrical pulses. The device is designed to bypass diseased or injured eye anatomy and transmit the electrical pulses wirelessly to an array of electrodes implanted on the surface of the brain's visual cortex, where it is intended to provide the perception of patterns of light, Second Sight added.
• EYES +9.95% to $2.32 premarket July 18

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