Vycor acquires NovaVision

Boca Raton, FL-Medical device company Vycor Medical Inc. has acquired NovaVision Inc., a provider of technologies designed to reverse and restore neurological visual loss.

Together the companies will promote NovaVision’s FDA-approved, non-invasive light stimulation-based platform (Vision Restoration Therapy [VRT])-clinically proven to restore permanently lost vision resulting from stroke, brain cancer, and traumatic or other acquired brain injury.

On average, patients permanently recover 5° of central vision through the neurostimulation therapy, said Tom Bridges, NovaVision vice president of sales and marketing.

“While 5° may sound like a small difference, clinical data show it can have an exceptional impact on patients’ lives,” Bridges said. “Improvements range from increased safety-since studies show that most adult hip fractures are due to vision-related falls-to reading, watching TV, grooming, hobbies, sports, and, in some cases, the ability to drive again.”

Cleared by the FDA in 2003, the therapy uses the eyes as conduits to deliver light-based stimuli to the brain to induce and accelerate neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to adapt and form new connections to overcome injury. The device’s diagnostic program maps areas where vision may be improved, and proprietary algorithms generate a customized neurostimulation therapy, specific to each patient, that activates the appropriate region within the brain’s vision-processing areas. The therapy aims to remap the brain’s visual system and expand the visual field of the patient to a more normal level, permanently restoring a measure of lost vision.

The neurostimulation therapy is performed on a leased device twice daily for 6 months at home. During each session, patients focus on a central point displayed on the device’s screen and respond every time they see light stimuli appear. The light stimuli are presented in the area most likely to recover visual function, an area that will change as therapy progresses and vision is improved.