Director General of Cognixion Andreas Forslund
Cognition
withAbbi Yitzi Hurwitz has passed a decade communicating only with his eyes. Diagnosed with amiotrophic side sclerosis (ALS), named “Lou Gehrig” disease in 2013, rapid loss of muscle control meant that he could “speak” only by pronouncing words for a chart. It is not as disappointing and demoralizing as you can imagine.
One of the 30,000 Americans currently living with ALS (about 5,000 new cases are diagnosed each year), Hurwitz has had several opportunities for relief, though new are slowly emerging. Among them is the one developed by Andreas Forslund, CEO of Cognixion. It is a brain interface (BCI) that can help paralyzed patients interact with computers and communicate. And unlike similar technologies from neuralralink Elon Musk, it does not require surgical implantation in the skull. The company announced today that it has begun its first clinical test, which will study technology with 10 ALS patients. Rabbi Hurwitz, is one, and he is already drilling on the device three days a week.
Hurwitz’s guardian told stale They are already seeing progress., “It seems very promising,” they said. “The first time he opened the keyboard, he actually managed to say something in his own and that was startling.
Rabbi Hurwitz using axon-r
Cognition
Cognixion has raised $ 25 million from entrepreneurship firms such as Prime Movers Lab and Amazon Alexa Fund to develop its BCI device, called Axon-R. It is a helmet that both can read the brain waves using an EEG and trail eye movements, letting users interact with an added reality screen. This enables a series of interactions, including the use of the device to “print” words loudly spoken through a computer speaker. The company uses generating models that train in patients’ speaking models, so over time it suits them, which should make communication faster. A developer API allows others to program Hardware applications and Forslund told Forbes there are about a dozen teams in the process now.
The clinical study will evaluate the ability of patients to use Axon-R and measure their progress over time, as well as assessing how its BCI can be optimized for patients. Financially financed in part with the support of ALS ACCEL, a new branch of the ALS non-profit Association that supports the development of new treatments for patients with ALS.
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Over the next few years, brain computer interfaces are likely to grow in an addressable market of $ 80 billion by 2035, Morgan Stanley estimated in a report last October. The Investment Bank noted the opportunity to treat a variety of conditions beyond ALS, including cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and more. And this is only for implanted equipment.
Although implanted equipment offers some advantages, Forslund sees a greater opportunity for its company’s non-invasive technology due to its attractiveness not to need surgery and platform skills for app developers. Cognixion aims to have over 3 million users of its technology by 2035.
When the initial study of 10 people ends in the fall, Cognixion plans to develop a second trial with up to 50 ALS patients. As good as good results there can make it easier for FDA, which has already given axon an appliance determination (which accelerates the regulatory process) to clean the axon for use with patients with ALS. This makes him sure that his company will commercialize quickly.
“While people like neuralralin are trying to get into their first patients, we will have 10 users this summer who will all hope to have conversations when they have been silent for a long time,” he said.
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