Pixium Vision SA and Second Sight Medical Products Inc. have inked a definitive agreement through which the former will become the controlling shareholder of the newly combined company. The transaction also will result in the creation of a new entity that will focus on cortical stimulation through Orion. Second Sight is developing that product, which bypasses the diseased eye and could provide a new form of vision.

Heru Inc., a medical technology company using artificial intelligence (AI) to advance vision diagnostics and augmentation, has completed class I device registration with the U.S. FDA for its cloud-based diagnostic application for visual field exams. Heru’s software works with commercially available augmented reality or virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets to provide a subjective visual field exam, with results immediately available to clinicians through a web portal.

PARIS – Tilak Healthcare SAS is signing an ophthalmology partnership agreement with Novartis AG from Basel, Switzerland, to expand international distribution of its vision monitoring technology, Odysight.

Eyenovia Inc., a clinical-stage ophthalmic biopharmaceutical firm, has launched a phase III trial of its on-demand treatment for presbyopia, an age-related worsening in near vision. The treatment, called Microline, is a proprietary formulation of pilocarpine delivered via a microdosing dispenser.

LONDON – Retinai Medicine AG reported a three-year master agreement with Novartis AG to apply its artificial intelligence (AI) tools in ophthalmology clinical trials. The first project will look at how machine learning can be used to speed up and improve the interpretation of optical coherence tomography (OCT) images of patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

The Cooper Companies Inc. (Coopercompanies) again beat analyst estimates, posting fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $682 million – down 3% from the same period the prior year, but ahead of the Street’s forecast of $676 million. Earnings per share (EPS) also topped consensus, at $3.16 vs. $3.09. The company attributed the better-than-expected performance to encouraging recovery trends in both its contact lens and surgical businesses.

Istar Medical SA, which is focused on minimally invasive ophthalmic implants for the treatment of glaucoma patients, revealed positive one-year results from the European STAR-II clinical trial of its micro-invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) device, Miniject.

PARIS – Esight Corp. is starting distribution of its newest low-vision assistive technology in France, Germany and the U.K. The latest version of the technology, the Esight 4, was designed to be more versatile and mobile than before, has double the display brightness and has improved the auto-focus function, according to the company.

Some PMA filings manage to scrape by at U.S. FDA advisory hearings, but the application for the Visability device by Refocus Group Inc. was not one of those. The panel voted 15-1 that the benefits of the device for presbyopia did not outweigh the risks, leaving the sponsor with a fundamental question about the viability of a technology that has been under development for more than 20 years.