Dear Friends,
Some of you may have questions about how ONWARD fits into the brain-computer interface (BCI) landscape, particularly after last week’s media coverage about Neuralink.
Neuralink is a US-based technology company led by Elon Musk. Last week, Musk announced that the company had for the first time implanted its BCI in a human to assess whether it could successfully record the person’s brain signals. As with anything Musk-related, the news was everywhere and examples can be read via the following links from Bloomberg, USA Today, ABC News, and the Daily Mail.
Many of last week’s news reports recognized ONWARD as a significant player in the BCI space. As I’ve shared previously, ONWARD is advancing BCI technology for the purpose of controlling our implantable ARCIM spinal cord stimulation therapy to restore movement of the human body. We have achieved several groundbreaking milestones with our partners at .NeuroRestore and CEA-Clinatec while studying the use of our ARCIM Therapy in conjunction with a BCI to help people with paralysis recover the ability to move, driven by the power of thought.
Neuralink is at a very early stage with its first human implant of a BCI. We have already shown that our ARCIM Therapy can restore movement with spinal cord stimulation alone, and that the addition of an implanted BCI can potentially make that movement more natural and controllable. In fact, peer-reviewed clinical publications have described the use of our ARCIM Therapy to restore lower limb movement in 12 total participants, including one who was also implanted with a BCI. An additional person has been implanted with ARCIM Therapy plus a BCI to assess his ability to restore thought-driven upper extremity movement, and at least 3 additional ARCIM + BCI implants are planned over the next year. It should also be noted that we are currently using a BCI from CEA-Clinatec that has 5 years of human safety data.
Two quotes from last week’s news stories further illustrate the current situation:
“The Musk invention doesn't get a person moving,” wrote USA Today reporter Karen Weintraub. “For that, there has to be a second intervention. To restore movement for a person whose limbs don't move, the microelectrodes that ‘read’ brain signals have to be connected via a ‘digital bridge’ to the spinal cord which then stimulates movement, said Grégoire Courtine, a Swiss neuroscientist who works in the area and helped co-found a company ONWARD Medical to commercialize the work.”
The Daily Mail also noted that “[Bloomberg host and Musk biographer Ashlee] Vance, who said he had visited Neuralink's facilities 10 times in three years, also revealed how Musk had pushed his company to ward off the threat of similar brain-computer start-ups Synchron and ONWARD.”
It may interest you to learn that I don’t consider Neuralink to be an ONWARD competitor. Like other pure-play BCI companies, Neuralink is focused on developing technology to help a person communicate with a computer mouse, keyboard, or voice generator. Our expertise and focus is restoring movement and function of the human body. Our ARCIM System is “BCI-ready” -- it has been designed to receive wireless signals from a BCI. That means we could eventually partner with Neuralink and other BCI companies or develop our own BCI using in-licensed technology. Strategically, we are in a strong position because our capabilities are unique and our technology platform provides great flexibility.
To learn more about the unique ways in which ONWARD is using BCI technology to help people with paralysis restore movement and to put the Neuralink news in context, I encourage you to please watch this video interview.
In closing, one positive from last week’s Neuralink news is the attention it is bringing to the work ONWARD and others are doing to restore movement and function after spinal cord injury. The SCI Community deserves more resources and attention, whatever the source.
Warm regards,