Second Sight Announces Appointments of Frank Vandeputte as Vice President & General Manager, EMEA & Asia Pacific; Gregoire Co...
19 October 2017 - 10:00PM
Business Wire
--Vandeputte to Lead All Commercial
Activities for Second Sight outside of North America--
Second Sight Medical Products, Inc. (NASDAQ:EYES) ("Second
Sight" or "the Company"), a developer, manufacturer and marketer of
implantable visual prosthetics that provide useful vision to blind
patients, today announced the appointment of Frank Vandeputte as
Vice President and General Manager, EMEA and Asia Pacific, where he
will lead all commercial activities for the Company outside of
North America.
Mr. Vandeputte is an international sales and marketing executive
with extensive commercial experience in high-tech medical devices,
including senior positions with TriVascular, Inc., Aptus
Endosystems, EBR Systems, Inc., Oxford Immuniotech, Sorin Group and
Guidant. He also has a track record of launching innovative
technologies with a focus on driving adoption, and managing and
building new businesses throughout the European Union. He will
report directly to Mr. Will McGuire, Second Sight’s President and
Chief Executive Officer.
In addition, Gregoire Cosendai has been appointed as Vice
President, Clinical Affairs. Dr. Cosendai will direct all clinical
activities including feasibility and pivotal trials for the Orion™
Cortical Visual Prosthesis System (Orion), as well as clinical
trials designed to expand the population of patients treatable by
the Argus® II Retinal Prosthesis System to include retinitis
pigmentosa (RP) patients with better vision. Dr. Cosendai was
formerly Vice President of European Operations for the Company. He
will continue to report to Mr. McGuire.
“Frank joins us with more than 30 years of sales and marketing
experience in medical devices. His leadership and commercialization
experience, coupled with our strong team in Europe, will position
us for continued success outside of the U.S. and Canada,” said Will
McGuire. “I’m also very pleased that Greg has assumed a new
position leading our clinical affairs team. His first priority is
the initiation of the Orion feasibility trial followed by the
planning and execution of a pivotal trial. Orion is an exciting
technology that can potentially restore useful vision to millions
of patients who today have no option,” concluded McGuire.
About the Orion™ Visual Cortical Prosthesis SystemSecond
Sight, the manufacturer of the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System
(Argus II), has developed a new device, the Orion. A
proof-of-concept clinical trial demonstrating the viability of
stimulation of the human visual cortex with a commercially
available device from a different manufacturer began in Q4 2016 at
UCLA. First-in-human clinical studies with the Orion are planned in
2017. Like the Argus II, the idea behind Second Sight’s Orion is to
convert 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 patients completely blinded due to many
reasons, including glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, or forms of
cancer and trauma. No clinical data is yet available for the
Orion.
About the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis SystemSecond
Sight's Argus II System provides electrical stimulation that
bypasses the defunct retinal cells and stimulates remaining viable
cells inducing visual perception in individuals with severe to
profound Retinitis Pigmentosa. 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, South
Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United
States.
Please consult your physician if you have any questions. Further
information about the Argus II, in particular about its indication,
counter-indications, the results achieved in patients with severe
to profound Retinitis Pigmentosa, possible side effects and
previously observed incidents can be found on this page:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0161642016305796.
About Second SightSecond Sight's mission is to develop,
manufacture and market innovative 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. Enrollment has been completed in a
feasibility trial to test the safety and utility of the Argus II in
individuals with Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Second Sight
is also developing the Orion™ Visual Cortical Prosthesis to restore
some vision to individuals who are blind due to causes other than
preventable or treatable conditions. U.S. Headquarters are in
Sylmar, California, and European Headquarters are in Lausanne,
Switzerland. For more information, visit www.secondsight.com.
Safe HarborThis press release contains forward-looking
statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act
of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange and
Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, which are intended to be covered
by the "safe harbor" created by those sections. All statements in
this release that are not based on historical fact are "forward
looking statements." These statements may be identified by words
such as "estimates," "anticipates," "projects," "plans," or
"planned," "seeks," "may," "will," "expects," "intends,"
"believes," "should," and similar expressions, or the negative
versions thereof, and which also may be identified by their
context. All statements that address operating performance or
events or developments that Second Sight expects or anticipates
will occur in the future, such as stated objectives or goals, or
that are not otherwise historical facts, are forward-looking
statements. While management has based any forward-looking
statements included in this release on its current expectations,
the information on which such expectations were based may change.
Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties
which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in
the forward-looking statements, as a result of various factors
including those risks and uncertainties described in the Risk
Factors and in Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial
Condition and Results of Operations sections of our Annual Report,
on Form 10-K, as filed on March 16, 2017, and our other
reports filed from time to time with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. We urge you to consider those risks and
uncertainties in evaluating our forward-looking statements. We
caution readers not to place undue reliance upon any such
forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made.
Except as otherwise required by the federal securities laws, we
disclaim any obligation or undertaking to publicly release any
updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained
herein (or elsewhere) to reflect any change in our expectations
with regard thereto, or any change in events, conditions, or
circumstances on which any such statement is based.
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Investor Relations:Institutional
InvestorsIn-Site Communications, Inc.Lisa Wilson,
212-452-2793Presidentlwilson@insitecony.comorIndividual InvestorsMZ North AmericaGreg Falesnik,
949-385-6449Managing Directorgreg.falesnik@mzgroup.us
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