Following a series of private investments and strategic acquisitions, Brainsway Ltd. announced it had received CE mark approval for a new therapy for chronic neuropathic pain, bringing another potential neurostimulation treatment to market in Europe. Meanwhile, the company reported positive interim results on its clinical trial of a treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder, adding to positive results from a pivotal multicenter trial studying its therapy for major depression. These trials validate a new device treatment for conditions that neurologists and psychiatrists typically treat with drugs.
Brainsway Closes Gap Between Devices And Drugs With Noninvasive Deep Brain Stimulation
Article preview from Start-Up - July, 2012
Deep brain stimulation technologies continue to gather momentum. Following a series of private investments and strategic acquisitions, Brainsway Ltd. announced in early July that it had received CE mark approval for a new therapy for chronic neuropathic pain, bringing another potential neurostimulation treatment to market in Europe. Meanwhile, the company reported positive interim results on its clinical trial of a treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder, adding to positive results from a pivotal multicenter trial studying its therapy for major depression. These trials validate a new device therapy for conditions that neurologists and psychiatrists typically treat with drugs.
Many of the diseases that originate in the brain – Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders, epilepsy, major depressive disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia – do not respond well to drug therapies, leaving an opportunity for device companies developing deep brain stimulation treatments. (See"Deep Brain Provides Stimulating Market" — START-UP, March 2012.) However, there is a wide gulf between pills that a patient swallows and current deep brain stimulation therapies from companies like Medtronic Inc. and St. Jude Medical Inc. because the latter require that a hole be bored into the skull so electrodes can be implanted into brain tissue. Brainsway occupies a middle ground, with a noninvasive way of achieving deep brain stimulation.
Brainsway was founded in Israel in 2003 with backing from private investors. The company went public in 2007 on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in an initial public offering that was four-times oversubscribed at the top end of its filing range. (The company raised 33 million NIS, or approximately $8.3 million.) Investors saw a low-risk therapy that in a single platform had the potential to treat a large number of serious diseases that are not well served by existing therapies. This thesis is now being borne out by positive results coming out of Brainsway’s carefully controlled clinical trials.
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