January 2023 issue
January 31, 2023 | The market for treating epilepsy with neurostimulation devices is one of the most secure segments of the neuromodulation industry, with several vendors offering FDA-approved implanted systems. But recent advances in neurosensing technology promise to boost revenues for neurotech firms offering neurodiagnostic products.
Recently, two commercial firms reported progress. Mint Neurotechnologies Ltd., a spinout from Imperial College in the U.K. , received a £1.4 million grant from the National Institute for Health and Care Research to develop a wireless intracranial neuromonitoring device for drug-resistant epilepsy. The project is led by Timothy Constandinou and Antonio Valentín, and brings together a multidisciplinary partnership between Imperial College London, King’s College London, and MintNeuro.
Surgery can help many people with DRE, typically by removing parts of the brain that are involved in initiating seizures. However, in order to identify these parts of the brain and assess whether they can be safely removed, it is often necessary to perform invasive brain activity recordings. This is currently achieved by inserting electrodes into the brain through tiny holes in the skull and connecting them to wires that run through the skull and skin to equipment that records brain signals. Unfortunately, this process has two major downsides. First, the patient has an open wound through to their brain for the monitoring period. The associated risks limit the monitoring period to around three weeks and limit the amount of data gathered (or not observing any seizures) which can prevent surgery. Also, the patients are tethered to a hospital bed. This can be deeply distressing for patients, (who may be constrained even from trips to the bathroom) and is sometimes not tolerable, especially for small children.
The project aims to develop a wireless intracranial neuromonitoring device that addresses these challenges by adopting a proprietary microchip technology provided by MintNeuro. This technology will make the device small, portable, and wireless, while ensuring that the data quality is not compromised. This will pave the way for future devices that will enable a minimally-invasive procedure, making the technology available to a much larger patient population.
The team’s vision is to create an implantable device that will allow patients to return home soon after a minimally-invasive insertion surgery. This will allow for a longer monitoring period, with patients free to continue their normal lives, leading to less patient distress, more seizures captured, better localization data, reduced clinical costs, and ultimately better surgical outcomes—resulting in substantial long-term cost saving.
The project, which officially began this month and will run for three years, will consist of three phases. The first phase will focus on refining MintNeuro’s proprietary microchip technology for use in epilepsy neuromonitoring. The second phase will involve conducting a first-in-human pilot study to validate the new technology against the current standard of care used in hospitals. The final phase will involve planning and supporting the translation of the technology for use in clinical settings.
“Neurological conditions are a major and growing issue in society, responsible for as many as one in four disabilities and one in six deaths,” said Constandinou, MintNeuro’s CTO. “Pharmaceutical treatments can be effective—but what we can treat is limited and new medicines for neurological conditions are extremely hard to develop, so we should explore alternative and complementary approaches.”
Another new firm pursuing the DRE market is Vonova Neurotech in San Diego, CA. That company seeks to remove neurodiagnostic barriers to treatment using a less invasive pathway to the brain. Their endovascular approach is targeted at theranostic applications in neurology. Wesley Jones, co-founder and CEO of the venture, pitched the startup during the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco earlier this month. The company spun out of the UCLA Biodesign Program.
