Vycor Medical (Vycor), a medical device company with a suite of FDA cleared products, announced the first release of its new "direct to the patient" saccadic eye training program to be marketed as NeuroEyeCoach.

The company further confirmed that the Internet-based program was on track to be commercially available by year-end 2013.

NeuroEyeCoach will also be available in an institutional version designed for use at rehabilitation and medical centers. The development work on the institutional version has also been completed.

Vycor president David Cantor said having completed the development of NeuroEyeCoach, company is on track to have full commercialization and availability of both a retail and institutional rehabilitation product by the end of 2013.

"We believe that NeuroEyeCoach will address a very substantial and under-served market. The retail version of NeuroEyeCoach will be available to patients via the Internet allowing for therapy to take place in the comfort of their home," Cantor added.

"We believe this will be the first such commercially available product offered via the Internet."

In addition to NeuroEyeCoach, NovaVision develops and markets a non-invasive, computer-based light stimulation therapy called Vision Restoration Therapy (VRT).

NovaVision’s VRT is the only medical device aimed at the restoration of vision for neurologically induced vision loss which has FDA 510(k) clearance to be marketed in the US.

The NeuroEyeCoach therapy is highly complementary to VRT. The two therapies address different visual disabilities each of which results from neurologically-induced vision loss — a loss of visual field as well as difficulty with eye movement, affecting the ability to integrate visual information.

VRT provides partial restoration of the patient’s lost visual field. NeuroEyeCoach has been specifically developed to increase the efficiency of eye movement and re-train the patients’ ability to integrate visual information between the left and right hand side.

The eventual inclusion of NeuroEyeCoach into the patients’ overall therapy regime along with VRT therefore addresses two key visual disabilities and will enable a significant positive impact in a patient’s interaction with their environment and hence their ability to successfully perform their daily living activities.

The company is in parallel actively working on re-engineering its VRT to also enable it for direct-to-the-patient Internet delivery and to streamline a number of business processes related to the delivery and servicing of patients, although the therapy itself will remain unchanged.

Once completed, NovaVision plans to offer both NeuroEyeCoach and VRT alongside each other in one therapy suite creating the most robust, affordably available Internet-based visual therapy solution targeted at neurologically induced vision loss.

NeuroEyeCoach is a result of collaboration between Vycor management and its world class NovaVision Scientific Advisory Board.