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LOS ANGELES—Second Sight Medical Products (NASDAQ: EYES), based here, announced Wednesday that it has taken significant steps to reduce overhead and conserve liquidity as it continues operations while assessing strategic options. These options include securing additional funding and exploring business alternatives that may include partnering, acquiring, investing in or combining with businesses that may or may not be in a related industry, the company said in a statement. VMAIL reported on April 2 that Second Sight had laid off approximately 84 of its 108 employees, effective March 31, 2020.

The move was in response to the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on Second Sight’s ability to secure financing, the company said. The company said it remains encouraged by the positive interim results from the six subjects at the Ronald Reagan UCLA in Los Angeles and the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston who have been implanted with the Orion Visual Cortical Prosthesis System, and the potential to advance the technology into larger clinical studies to treat profound blindness arising from nearly all forms of preventable blindness.

Acting CEO Matthew Pfeffer said,“Since taking over as the acting CEO, we have been able to attract interest from unrelated third parties that may enable us to secure value from the intellectual property we have built and which gave rise to several new strategic opportunities that could enhance enterprise value for all of our stakeholders. We are in a fluid situation and intend to provide further updates on a regular basis as warranted,” he said.