A pair of nascent technology companies touting "electroceutical" treatments teamed up to develop wireless vagus nerve stimulation technology.
New allies electroCore and waveCore signed a $14 million development agreement, leveraging waveCore’s wireless, body-friendly transmitter technology and electroCore’s neurostimulation technology. The pair are part of an emerging trend in medical technology, looking to develop therapies that could take the place of pharmaceuticals.
The companies are close relatives, with waveCore owned by the founding shareholders of electroCore, which developed a non-invasive method of vagus nerve stimulation that can be self-administered by patients suffering from headache, bronchoconstriction, epilepsy, gastric motility disorders, depression and anxiety, the companies said.
electroCore hopes to incorporate waveCore’s wireless system to develop a miniature implanted electrode powered by a transmitter outside the body, either around the neck as a pendant, inside a shirt pocket or otherwise clipped onto clothing. Only the electrode is implanted, meaning no revision surgeries to replace dead batteries, no anatomical pocket to house the signal generator and no surgical tunneling to weave leads to a treatment target.
"While our non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation is expected to be the answer for the majority of VNS-responders, for those patients who are not able to self administer the therapy waveCore’s technology offers an ideal minimally invasive option," electroCore CEO JP Errico said in prepared remarks. "There are also some patients who will require more frequent dosing of the therapy to be effective, which may become impractical with our hand held device. We want to be able to offer a complete set of solutions in the VNS area and this partnership helps achieve that goal."
Under the terms of the agreement waveCore agreed to pay electroCore an initial $2 million in support of a 1st-in-man pilot study, as well as a $4 million milestone payment to achieve FDA approval of a pivotal study and $8 million to support eventual premarket approval, according to a press release.
