Houston-based startup Braincheck Inc. scooped up $8 million in series A funding in a round led by S3 Ventures and Tensility Venture Partners, along with True Wealth Ventures and Nueterra Capital. Braincheck launched its digital cognitive assessment tool in 2015 and a cognitive care planning solution in 2018, and now the company is looking to broaden its footprint with physician practices, hospitals and health systems. Proceeds from the financing will help to build the company's sales and marketing and clinical development teams in Houston, as well as production development staff in Austin.
The routine application of medical device technology to neurological indications beyond pain remains challenging in all but the most severe patients. Micro-cap Neuronetics Inc. is aiming to change all that with its Neurostar transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) system that is noninvasive and used in the physician's office.
The leucine-repeat rich kinase 2 (Lrrk2) gets most of its attention in the context of Parkinson's disease (PD). Variants in Lrrk2 are a major cause of familial PD (though familial PD makes up only a small fraction of overall PD cases).
Functional Neuromodulation Ltd. is looking to help those suffering from mild Alzheimer's disease. To that end, it recently disclosed that it has kicked off the global ADvance II Study (NCT03622905), a pivotal clinical trial to assess deep brain stimulation (DBS) in these patients.
Irvine, Calif.-based Axonics Modulation Technologies Inc., which has developed an implantable rechargeable sacral neuromodulation (r-SNM) device for the treatment of urinary and bowel dysfunction, has won the FDA's nod for its system to help patients with fecal incontinence.
Concussion and traumatic brain injury (TBI) are serious public health problems, but they can be tricky to diagnose, with symptoms sometimes not presenting for days or weeks following a head injury. Abnormal eye movement can indicate a TBI, but traditional "follow my finger" screenings won't pick up more subtle changes in vision. Artificial intelligence (AI) could improve diagnosis by measuring deficits in certain eye movements that occur with a TBI. In a study published online July 25, 2019, in the journal Concussion, Bethesda, Md.-based Righteye Inc.'s FDA eye-tracking technology not only identified but scaled the severity of TBIs by measuring horizontal and vertical saccades, rapid eye movements between fixed points.