Hodak: Second Sight's retinal implant received $150,000 per patient in reimbursement
Max Hodak · From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodak · Aug 20, 2026 · at 23:37
Max Hodak, CEO of neural interface company Science, discusses pricing and reimbursement precedents for retinal implants and vision restoration technologies.
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“Second site, 10 years ago, they, so there's a company about a decade ago that had a retinal prosthesis that works differently than ours does. It did not get the type of performance that Prima does, but was Briefly approved. Cause then there's really nothing for these patients. There's always been a lot of enthusiasm for anything that could possibly help them. And they didn't get what we call form form vision. They didn't get like a coherent, like face or like paragraph that, that your eyes could scan over. They got these flashes of light that patients could look at and kind of think about assembling into what they meant. They got paid about 150,000 dollars per patient.”
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