Andre Mercanzini on revolutionizing Deep Brain Stimulation using small directional probes by Aleva Neuro
Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
Release Date: 09/19/2022
Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
is now the Chief Technology Officer at which is developing a minimally invasive neural implant for the treatment of depression and mental health issues. Steve was at Medtronic for 26 years before moving over to the startup landscape. Top 3 Takeaways: "Starting a big program that you don't know how to finish is a very expensive endeavor, and so you want to really shake out all the science risk, all the technology risk, be pretty sure you can execute a thing before you turn on that big engine because it's expensive once you go" "We know stimulation of the dorsal lateral...
info_outlineNeural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
is a research group leader at the Central European Institute of Technology () located in Brno, Czech Republic. There he studies neural implant fabrication and materials specializing in silicon, parylene, and polyimide devices. He has also started to designs and fabricate devices on a contract basis for other research groups and companies. And, his institute is the one that has been recently sponsoring the podcast! This podcast is sponsored by CEITEC Nano, check out their Neurotech Device Manufacturing Capabilities Top 3 Takeaways: "You can just buy stuff on the internet very simple red...
info_outlineNeural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
is an Associate Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery and also has appointments with the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research is in the areas of bioinstrumentation and neural engineering. In this episode we talk about his freeform nerual stimulator which allows for DC and any other waveforms without any electrolytic effects on the electrodes. This opens up many possibilities for neural stimulation. We also talk about his startup Aidar which is like a 'tricorder' all-in-one medical diagnostic...
info_outlineNeural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
comes on to talk about the latest new from , which has developed the Stentrode as well as the new Synchron Switch. Kurt talks about his new role as Chief Commercial Officer and where the company is heading. ***This podcast is sponsored by CEITEC Nano, check out their Neurotech Device Manufacturing Capabilities *** Top three takeaways: 1. "The beauty of this approach is that the blood vessels are an amazing place. To be able to put implants and we've, we're leveraging really decades of science and medical devices in say, the coronary space and the heart space. We know that these...
info_outlineNeural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
Pawel Soluch is a returning guest who goes over his work at , then his consulting at , and now finally he talks about the program that he is launching with me! Top 3 Takeaways: Pawel and I (Ladan) are launching the Medtech Coaching program which will be aimed at helping medical device executives gain success in their businesses Coaching is different from consulting in that we do not generate anything for you but instead help you to become the best medtech executive you can possibly be In addition to group coaching we will also be offering individual coaching and also a retreat in January...
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did the keynote talk at the . I was able to sit down with her and talk to learn more about her auditory processing selectivity research. Top 3 Takeaways: Nurses especially can get used to beeping and alarms which can be dangerous for patients. "Under anesthesia, you see some basic responses, but they are different than when you engage the, let's say, an animal in an awake state, and then when they are awake and actually behaving and engaging with the system" Audio recordings can be tuned to remove ambient noise but they need to be perfectly calibrated to distances between microphones. ...
info_outlineNeural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
Suraj Mudichintala is a Senior Associate at Action Potential Capital which is GSK's bioelectronic medicine venture fund. Top 3 Takeaways: "Our fund is different in that we invest actually directly off of GSK's balance sheet. So we're what's called an evergreen fund where we don't actually have a fund size" "The way that I think about it is that a VC is really paid to allocate capital but really is really paid to think. You really have to think about what is the next space or the next technology that could disrupt a space? And because of that, it's a much you often have to take a much more...
info_outlineNeural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
Balint Varkuti is the CEO of CereGate which unlocks new capabilities for existing neuromodulation technologies using software. Top 3 Takeaways: "the brain is naturally wired for pattern perception for learning, and that's really what we do. We send signals that the brain very quickly can pick up." "You do not need to exclusively be focused mentally, consciously on interpreting these signals. Rather it becomes second nature. Our favourite analogy is saying it is like braille for the brain." "With hardware, you sometimes have simply the disadvantage that you are married to the time point when...
info_outlineNeural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
returns to the podcast to give an update about his work at the and the work at . Top 3 Takeaways: "Two years we discovered that a drug called Famotidine, which is sold as a generic drug Pepcid AC is actually a pharmacological or a drug-based vagus nerve stimulator. And we proved first in mice that famotidine placed directly in very small amounts placed directly in the brains of mice activates the vagus nerve. And this in turn turned off cytokine storm, which of course is a big problem in Covid 19" "A company that I've co-founded, Setpoint Medical, is currently deep into clinical trials in...
info_outlineNeural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
is the founder and CEO of which uses wearable EEG caps to quantitatively measure cannabis experiences. Top 3 Takeaways: "The reason why the government funded us was to use this for safety and law enforcement" "The combination of features that AI is finding is something that we haven't really focused on studying and trying to understand. It's a black box today that, is accurately and objectively characterizing the psychoactive effects, but we don't exactly know what they mean." "Based on this neuroscience-driven research proving the onset time of the beverage, within two weeks [the...
info_outlineAndre Mercanzini is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Aleva Neurotherapeutics which has worked in directional Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) device leads for Parkinson's and other diseases.
***This podcast is sponsored by Iris Biomedical, check out their Neurotech Startup Services here***
Top 3 Takeaways:
- "We realized during that time that the intervention that could benefit the most from the miniaturization technologies was by far and away, deep brain stimulation."
- "MEMS allowed us to align every single electrode into its position, have it almost prewired and decrease the amount of touch time that an operator would have to spend on the device as they're manufacturing it, which, which gives us a price advantage as well."
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"My advice to PhD students postdocs, physician inventors, and professors working on neuro technologies is that you have to work on something that will make a major change in patient outcomes. It cannot just be incremental. If it has any signs of only being incremental, it will be very difficult to get funded. It will be very difficult to get your early adopters to sign up and use or test your device. It's always a difficult metric to determine what that means. Is it a 20% improvement in symptoms? Is it a 40% improvement in symptoms? Is it treating a disease that is not treatable today? That is really the major choice you have to make as an entrepreneur in your own technology is whether your work will make a significant change in patient outcomes."
0:30 "Do you want to explain what Aleva does a little bit and a little bit of your background?"
3:30 "What would you say that is a special thing in Lausanne that maybe other places could copy or are not able to copy?"
5:00 "Let's talk about Aleva"
6:45 "Iris Biomedical ad sponsorship"
7:15 "What's DBS and how did Aleva get started? You were saying this spun out of your PhD work. What did that look like then? And maybe how has it changed now?"
13:15 "Why is having directional leads was such a design problem?"
16:45 "What has the evolution been in the last decade, and then maybe what's future directions?"
20:30 You raised $70 million to get through the regulatory pathway, this seems like alot, couldn't you do it with 5 or 10 million?
23:30 Surgeons often like to stick with what they know, do you know if there would be a demand for what you are making?
25:45 Do you want to talk about wearables and how this fits in with your company?
29:00 "What advice do you have for people who want to follow in your footsteps and want to, create, raise $70 million and do you have to be in Switzerland to do this?"
31:45 "You've raised a lot of money and so is that good or bad and aren't you worried about being diluted too much?"
34:00 " Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"