News

About 200 neuroscientists, clinicians, and neural engineers from the Northwest and beyond attended the second annual NeuroFutures Conference, held in Portland, OR earlier this month. The event was hosted University, with support from the University of Washington, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and the Northwest Neuro Neighborhood. Keynote speaker Helen Mayberg from Emory University gave attendees an update on her efforts at developing new DBS therapies for depression and other mood disorders.

October 20-21, 2014 Doubletree San Francisco Airport North Keynote Speaker Mir Imran founded InCube Labs to focus on his passion: creating medical solutions that change the standard of care in critical healthcare markets. After attending medical school, Mir began his career as a healthcare entrepreneur in the late 1970’s and has founded numerous game-changing companies since those early days. Over the decades, he has become one of the leading inventors and entrepreneurs in the field.

June, 2015 issue The neurotech market for treating urological and bladder disorders has become more crowded recently as several new firms have introduced new sacral nerve or tibial nerve stimulation systems. At the recent meeting of the International Neuromodulation Society in Montreal [see conference report, p7], several new players were on hand. Axonics Modulation Technologies of Irvine CA, a spi…

The reported results from Functional Neuromodulation’s ADvance study of DBS of the fornix for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, which showed no significant difference in cognitive scores between treatment and control arms [see article, page 1], is now the latest clinical trial disappointment for the neuromodulation industry. The publication of results from Medtronic’s trial of DBS of VC/VS for depression came as less of a shock, since we’ve known of that failure for some time.

The neurotech market for treating urological and bladder disorders has become more crowded recently as several new firms have introduced new sacral nerve or tibial nerve stimulation systems. At the recent meeting of the International Neuromodulation Society in Montreal [see conference report, p7], several new players were on hand. Axonics Modulation Technologies of Irvine CA, a spinoff from the Alf…

About 1400 clinicians, neural engineers, and researchers attended the INS 12th World Congress in Montreal, Canada earlier this month. The event was organized . The Canadian Neuromodulation Society organized a pre-conference public education meeting. Alim Benabid from the University of Grenoble in France was honored as the INS Giant of Neuromodulation award for his pioneering work in deep brain stimulation.

One of the most striking observations about the recent meeting of the International Neuromodulation Society in Montreal [see conference report, p7] was the addition of two new spinal cord stimulation system vendors as platinum level sponsors, joining the big three—Medtronic, St. Jude Medical, and Boston Scientific—that have dominated previous meetings. The emergence of the two new publicly traded neuromodulation firms, Nevro Corp.

As a sign that the investment climate for healthcare startup firms has undergone changes in recent years, several neurotechnology startups have exploited some new fundraising alternatives that were not available a decade ago. Some have turned to crowdfunding options as a way to supplement their startup capital. Earlier this year, NeuroMetrix raised about $400,000 in an Indiegogo campaign that offered participants a Quell surface stimulation device for $199, a discount from the normal $250 price.

SharpBrains, the Washington, D.C. publisher of maket intelligence, released a new 206-page report that, for the first time, ana­lyzes the major intellectual property trends in the per­va­sive neurotechnology industry: noninvasive, potentially ubiquitous neurotechnologies, commercially viable outside major medical institutions or research facilities. Over the past two years a Sharp­Brains team, cros…

May has been a productive month for the neurotechnology industry, with a string of events bringing good news to investors and entrepreneurs. The FDA approval of Nevro’s Senza spinal cord stimulation system [see article, p2] was welcome news not only for the company and its investors, but for the industry as a whole, given the relative paucity of PMA approvals for implanted neuromodulation devices in recent years.