News

Anyone reading this issue of Neurotech Business Report could easily come to the conclusion that these are interesting times in the neurotechnology industry. At a time when many healthtech startups are worried that the fountain of investment dollars we’ve seen in the last few years may be drying up, we report on at least four early-stage neurotech firms receiving funding [see Financial News, p7]. Sa…

A team of investigators from two Pittsburgh research institutions and a startup firm have developed a novel neurorehabilitation technology that may soon add to clinicians repertoire for treating stroke. While previous efforts at stroke rehabilitation have used vagus nerve stimulation, cortical stimulation, and surface stimulation strategies, the new approach uses spinal cord stimulation to improve arm and hand mobility.

Neurotech Reports, the publisher of BioElectRx Business Report, released new market forecasts for the bioelectronic medicine industry in the years 2023-2028. Neurotech Reports editor James Cavuoto will preview the new data on April 4 at the 2023 Bioelectronic Medicine Forum in New York City. The full published report, The Market for Bioelectronic Medicine: 2023-2028 , will be available next month.

One of the greatest challenges confronting vendors of brain implants such as DBS and BCI systems is developing devices that conform better with brain tissue. Almost all implanted neurostimulation devices on the market today are based on metal electrodes that come into contact with neural tissue. The better the contact, the more useful the device. Metal electrodes are stiffer than surrounding brain tissue, and are prone to all the mechanical impacts the human body is exposed to.

Boomerang Medical, in Mountain View, CA, is a startup advancing the treatment of autoimmune diseases through bioelectronic medicine. They were founded in 2021, closed a $15 million Series A funding round in late 2022, and in early 2023, they announced breakthrough device designation from the FDA for their approach to treating Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, the two most common forms of inflammatory bowel disease.

Neurotech Business Report More than 2,000 medical device industry executives, entrepreneurs, and investors assembled in Dana Point, CA earlier this month for the 2023 LSI Emerging Medtech Summit. The neurotech industry was well represented at the event. One of the unique features of this conference is the insight it offers into the dealmaking process. Several panel discussions featured medtech exec…

The news that Stimwave founder Laura Perryman was indicted [see article, p3] makes us sad for a number of reasons. First, whether or not the government’s allegations are borne out, it casts a negative spell on the neuromodulation industry—and the PNS market segment in particular—at a time when the industry is already reeling from journal articles casting doubt on neuromodulation’s efficacy and from negative coverage decisions from some private insurers.

Helen Mayberg to Keynote Sixth Annual Bioelectronic Medicine Forum in New York City Neurotech Reports, the publisher of the Neurotech Business Report and BioElectRx Business Report newsletters, announced that the Sixth Annual Bioelectronic Medicine Forum will take place on April 4, 2023. The one-day event will be held at the New York Academy of Medicine in Manhattan. The keynote speaker at this yea…

and James Cavuoto, editor February 2023 issue, BioElectRx Business Report One of the fundamental challenges impacting the pharmaceutical industry’s growth in the CNS market is the difficulty in getting drugs to penetrate the blood-brain barrier. Two early-stage firms, Cerebral Therapeutics and Kurve Therapeutics, are pursuing novel technologies to circumvent this limitation. Kurve’s controlled particle dispersion technology exploits the nasal cavities at alternative drug delivery mechanism.

Neurotechnology researchers have made significant strides in understanding the workings of the brain, but there is still much to learn and to integrate. As patients and clinicians live in a world with changing needs and moving parts, focusing on only one technique or one type of technology has limits. The usefulness of implants has been limited : a person with an implant may be able to communicate, move, or sense far more easily than they could without the implant.