LONDON: Medtronic Plc is partnering with brain implant company Precision Neuroscience Corp in a deal that will give the medical device maker access to neural data it can use to develop new products.
As part of the agreement announced on Monday, the companies will work together to create a device that gives surgeons more information about brain activity, according to Precision chief executive officer Michael Mager.
That could, for example, allow a doctor removing a brain tumor to better determine what tissue can be cut out without creating other problems like damaging speech or limb function.
Medtronic will also get access to anonymous brain data, which it can use for research, development, regulatory submissions and product improvements, both for this specific system and for others, according to Precision.
The agreement is the first public alliance between a brain implant startup and a large medical device maker, indicating the futuristic chips being developed by companies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp and others are gaining mainstream approval.
While large companies like Medtronic have been selling brain implants for decades, such as deep-brain stimulators for Parkinson’s disease, research labs and Silicon Valley upstarts have been building more cutting-edge implants that more closely connect human patients with computers.
Those chips are only approved for use in clinical trials.
Musk and other researchers have touted a future in which the implants could help paralysed people communicate and blind people see, among other uses.
Musk has also talked about the chips as key to helping healthy humans keep up with ever-more-capable artificial intelligence technology.
He said brain devices could speed up our thinking, though many in the scientific and medical establishment say that’s unrealistic.
A growing number of companies in the United States, China, and elsewhere are developing brain implants.
The field has attracted over US$2bil in investment, with Precision raising US$180mil, according to the company.
Precision’s implant is a patch that sits on top of the brain and reads signals from there, in contrast to Neuralink’s chip, which sticks into brain tissue.
Precision’s device has been cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration for short-term use and has been tested in over 68 patients, according to the company. It’s developing the implant for health conditions like paralysis.
Surgeons already use other kinds of patches to measure brain activity, but they’re less precise, and the data and images of the brain are on separate displays, requiring a technician to shout across the room to the surgeon about areas to avoid, Mager said.
The new device Precision will make with Medtronic shows data about neural activity superimposed on images of the brain for the surgeon to monitor at the operating table.
It’s too soon to know when the combined system will be available or what it might cost, Mager said.
Medtronic’s interest in new brain implant technology has increased over the past year. — Bloomberg
