ARTICLE SUMMARY:
2C Tech was founded by two ophthalmologists at the University of Colorado who created a new device therapy that harnesses trillions of quantum dots injected into the back of the eye to restore neural pathways lost in the course of retinal diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa. While the therapy is a device, it is delivered like a drug, and will have gross margins that look a lot more like a pharmaceutical than a device.
TKTK “Why couldn’t we…?” Some two decades ago, a question inspired the inventive thought process of Jeffrey Olson, MD, a retinal specialist and associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Colorado’s School of Medicine. Considering the Argus retinal array developed by Second Sight Medical (now defunct), a rather large implant providing electronic stimulation to patients suffering from blindness due to retinitis pigmentosa, Olson wondered whether it would be possible to instead distribute tiny implants throughout the retina to stimulate neural circuits.
Olson and his colleague Naresh Mandava, MD, now chair of the department of ophthalmology at University of Colorado, researched the problem at length, finally learning that the technology to underpin such a solution existed: the quantum dot. The two co-founded and incorporated 2C Tech in 2008, to harness quantum dots with the goal of restoring vision to patients suffering from blindness due to damage to the retina.
