SYLMAR, Calif. & LAUSANNE, Switzerland—Second Sight Medical Products, Inc. (Nasdaq:EYES), a developer, manufacturer and marketer of implantable visual prosthetics for blind patients suffering from Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), announced it has received a positive recommendation from advisors to the U.K. Government’s health care funding authority for specialized services in England. For the first time in the U.K., the publicly-funded NHS system will fund blind patients with RP to receive treatment with the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System (Argus II) “bionic eye.”

NHS England has announced that a selective group of severely blind patients with Retinitis Pigmentosa can have access to Argus II, the world’s first and only routinely used treatment for severe blindness. There will be two implantation centers: the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital in the north of England, and in the south, London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital. The hospitals and Second Sight will also provide follow up, rehabilitation and support to patients receiving an Argus II implant.

Argus II will be funded via the Commissioning through Evaluation (CtE) program. The CtE program is especially designed for treatments that show significant promise for the future, while new clinical and patient experience data are collected within a formal evaluation program. Argus II is already reimbursed under a similar “coverage with evidence development” program in France called “Forfait Innovation” where patients have benefitted from the Argus II treatment.

Will McGuire, President and CEO of Second Sight, said, “This is a major milestone for Second Sight because we are the only company able to demonstrate a favorable long-term benefit-to-risk statement up to five years after implantation for some RP patients. NHS England is known to be under significant financial pressure and also extremely selective in adopting innovative technologies—which must demonstrate sufficient value for money. We expect that this decision will be observed throughout the world by other health care agencies.”

Second Sight continues its groundbreaking work with the aim to restore vision to patients with every type of untreatable blindness, the company said. Its U.K. research on age-related macular degeneration (AMD) continues. In 2015, the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital in England fitted several AMD patients with implants. In the U.S., Second Sight is working with UCLA, and recently performed the successful implantation and activation of a wireless visual cortical stimulator in a human subject.