News

Like most other segments of the medical device industry, the neurotech industry depends heavily on reimbursement from private and public payers. While there are some categories of noninvasive devices that are priced low enough for end users to pay out of pocket, for most implanted devices, a neurotech therapy has little chance of commercial success without a favorable coverage decision and Medicaid Services.

president & CEO, Patient’s Academy for Research Advocacy March 2021 issue The allure of a pay-per-dose revenue model for neuromodulation therapies is easy to understand—especially for therapies that will compete directly with drugs for payers’ and patients’ healthcare dollars. Proponents of the approach expect that collecting billing for a device up front will speed up patient access, smooth the path to reimbursement, and make cost-effectiveness comparisons with drugs more fair.

NeuroPace Inc., the Mountain View, CA manufacturer of neuromodulation devices, has made its name in the industry by pioneering a closed-loop intracortical device for the treatment of epilepsy. As the company prepares for an impending IPO, it will takes its place among two other publicly traded manufacturers of implanted devices to treat epilepsy: Medtronic and LivaNova. Depending on its success in…

Neurotech Reports, the publisher of Neurotech Business Report, announced that Murthy Simhambhatla, the president and CEO of SetPoint Medical, will keynote the Fourth Annual Bioelectric Medicine Forum on April 6, 2021. The event will take place via video conference, though Neurotech Reports plans to be back in New York City in 2022. Simhambhatla took the helm of the Valencia, CA bioelectronic medicine firm in August 2018.

As the neuromodulation industry begins to recover from a crippling pandemic that seriously impacted the number of procedures performed in 2020, it is worth reflecting on another scourge that impacted our nation last year. We’re referring to the growing incidence of racism and discrimination that came to a head in several high-profile incidents. A newly published article in the journal Neuromodulati…

The market for implanted pain neuromodulation devices is expected to rebound precipitously later this year and in subsequent years, according to a new market research report from the editors of Neurotech Reports. The report, entitled The Market for Pain Neuromodulation: 2021-2026 , offers a detailed forecast of implanted spinal cord stimulation systems and peripheral nerve stimulation systems. The…

The cochlear implant industry has experienced significant growth in the last 20 years, as industry leaders Cochlear Ltd., Advanced Bionics, and Medel have offered a steady stream of enhancements to their devices and sound processing algorithms. Still, the field has been limited somewhat auditory channels—increasing the number of electrodes doesn’t necessarily deliver a more robust frequency spectrum.

Over the last 20 years, one of the most promising, though one of the most challenging, applications of neurotechnology has been visual neuroprosthetics. The goal of restoring vision to blind people has attracted a wide array of researchers and entrepreneurs, and a relatively small though not insignificant amount of funding from investors, non-profit organizations, and government entities. Sadly, the path to commercialization in this area has been littered with casualties.

Neurotech researchers pursuing new therapies for treating mood disorders such as depression are increasingly looking toward personalized therapies to help patients resistant to medications. Recently, research teams at three U.S. institutions published findings supporting this new strategy. Earlier this month, a team of investigators at UC San Francisco’s Dolby Family Center for Mood Disorders publi…

Investigators affiliated with several vendors of neuromodulation systems presented findings at the 2021 meeting of the North American Neuromodulation Society earlier this month. The meeting, which was originally planned for Orlando, FL, took place via video conference. At the meeting, Nevro announced results supporting the use of the company’s HF10 therapy for patients with chronic pain, including results from the painful diabetic neuropathy and non-surgical refractory back pain randomized clinical trials.