A future pillar of medicine
Instead of only stimulating, bioelectronic devices have the potential to also monitor the disease condition[1]. Combining nerve signals with other accessible physiological datasets can help create a holistic understanding of disease conditions. This understanding will support better and personalized treatment regimens in the future.
Applying our longstanding material and healthcare expertise will help us to advance this future pillar of medicine, with the aim of bringing new hope to patients with severe and chronic diseases.
Aspects of this include:
- Bioelectronic treatment regimes in Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany's therapeutic areas Next generation neuro–recording and -stimulation technologies
- Precise disease targeting leads to personalized medicine
- Continuous data gathering & analysis allows AI powered solutions for improved patient outcomes
"Bioelectronic devices show great promise in helping to improve therapeutic outcomes and efficiency for patients with chronic inflammatory diseases. By combining our expertise across electronics, medicines and drug delivery with the neurostimulation technologies of our external partners, we aim to create novel modalities to enhance the quality of care for patients in several chronic diseases.”
Belén Garijo, Chair of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany
The future of Bioelectronics
Today / short term: Increasing number of approved treatments (e.g. epilepsy, PD) using electrical stimulation impulses with no automated bio feedback (open loop)
Midterm: Device Miniaturization and new stimulation modalities with the aim to enable superior treatments for a broad set of indications
Long term: New materials and technologies to allow for a comprehensive human machine interface enabling personalized and automated treatments
[1] Intellis device Medtronic for spinal cord stimulation for pain; AspireSR and Sentiva from LivaNova for treatment of epilepsy
Our innovation projects in this field will enable innovative neurostimulation treatments. Dive deeper to learn more about our highly selective vagus nerve recording and stimulation and how we are boosting energy efficiency and high-resolution recording to enable new treatments
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