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The market for treating bowel and bladder disorders with bioelectronic medicine therapies has become more crowded in recent months as new vendors have entered the space and existing competitors have expanded their product offerings. The primary indication vendors are targeting is overactive bladder, though there are also applications in treating fecal incontinence and other forms of urinary incontinence.

Xavier Becerra, the former congressman from California, took over as Secretary of Health and Human Services just a few weeks ago and has already found himself in the throes of controversy when President Biden announced the ARPA-H program [see article, p1]. While it is currently envisioned that ARPA-H will be housed within NIH because of its strong alignment with the NIH mission and because of NIH’s…

The market for treating obstructive sleep apnea represents one of the most lucrative opportunities for vendors of bioelectronic medicine. The early market leader, Inspire Medical, has experienced rapid growth after a very successful IPO. But two other public firms with regulatory approval in Europe are planning to take market share from them once they obtain FDA approval, and a host of startups are getting ready to offer new therapies to clinicians and patients.

A team of researchers at the University of Oxford in the U.K. has identified a novel target for treating movement disorders. The investigators, including Alex Green, an associate professor of neurosurgery, and Tim Denison, a professor of engineering science, used Bioinduction Ltd.’s Picostim DBS system to stimulate the pedunculopontine nucleus in Parkinson’s-like multiple systems atrophy. The team has begun a feasibility trial called MINDS with five subjects with MSA receiving closed-loop DBS of the PPN.

Neurotech Reports, the publisher of the Neurotech Business Report and BioElectRx Business Report newsletters, announced that founders and CEOs of several promising bioelectronic medicine startups will present at the Fifth Annual Bioelectric Medicine Forum on April 5, 2022. The event will take place in New York City, although participation via Zoom videoconference will be accomodated. Presenters inc…

The 2022 BIO CEO & Investor Conference, held earlier this month in New York City and via remote video conference, featured several sessions of interested to entrepreneurs and emerging firms in the healthcare industry. One particularly noteworthy panel was devoted to the role that incubators can play in the commercialization process. The session was moderated , the CEO of Xontogeny, a life sciences accelerator in Boston, MA.

Neuroscientists from across the globe participated in the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science earlier this month. The meeting was conducted entirely online because of the coronavirus pandemic. A session devoted to decoding brain signals was moderated National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Helen Bronte-Stewart from Stanford University gave a presentation on the subject of neural controllers for closed-loop neurostimulation in Parkinson’s disease.

Of all the unmet medical needs confronting the healthcare industry today, psychiatric disorders looms large. For vendors of noninvasive and implanted neuromodulation systems, the market for treatment-resistant depression in particular is both alluring and elusive. Few people in this country are as aware of the shortcomings of our mental health system as Tom Insel. As the former director of the Nati…

The worldwide market for EEG systems, estimated at about $1.2 billion , is currently dominated by a handful of large medtech vendors such as Natus Medical, who offer hospitals and other clinical settings standalone, multichannel neurodiagnostic systems for diagnosing disorders such as epilepsy, stroke, and Alzheimer’s disease. But the emerging market for portable and home-based EEG systems stands to alter the competitive outlook in this space.

consulting editor January 2022 issue, BioElectRx Business Report A few pharmas have dipped their toes into bioelectronic medicine, but Astellas Pharma Inc. has declared it as a key element of its growth strategy over the next decade. The Japanese pharma says it believes bioelectronic therapies can deliver greater value to patients costs, and can also provide its prescription drug business with a competitive advantage derived from new biological insights.