Carolina Aguilar, INBRAIN Neuroelectronics - Neuroelectronic Therapies| LSI Europe '22

Transcription

Carolina Aguilar  0:06  

So yes, we are INBRAIN. We use graphene to decode neural signals into breakthrough medical solutions. We were founded in 2020. Because of the vehicle that European Commission put the 1 billion to bring graphing to market. Thanks to that, we were able to mature the semiconductors manufacturing technology that we have, and raise 15.8 million with investors from Germany and Spain. Additionally, we got a European Pathfinder of 5.2 million that allowed us to go from a five people company to a 48 people company with more than 30% 30% of women. We also managed to secure collaboration with Merck, and INBRAIN that central nervous system, whereas we created this vehicle called intervias for the collaboration with Merck, which focus on different nervous system. So our objective in the future is actually to link both central and peripheral nervous system because at the end, we have one nervous system. On the right hand side, you have a human brain nearly 100 billion neurons. On the left side, you have a similar fish brain of 100,000 years. This is how much we know today about the brain, right? With the current tools with platinum lithium. This is how much we have learned about the brain. But we need more because obviously, we don't know how the brain works, we cannot fix it. And one out of three people have a neurological related disease 30% are refractory to medical treatment. And this generates a huge cause for the society. Now, we need more tools. And every leap in humanity has been linked to a new material from a stone age to silicon age. And now in neuro technology, we need to go beyond so graphene gave us that opportunity to be the ideal candidate for Neuro tech revolution. It is a Nobel Prize winner material is the thinnest material known to man at Nutan thick, yet 200 times stronger than steel, flexible, biocompatible, and with very unique conductive properties, we need it because what we have today is not enough, these are platforms that have been in the market for more than 70 years. Platinum and aluminium cannot be miniaturized. And if we want to really reach the broadest spectrum of all that potential, we need to go beyond and make sure that we can really convince patients that they need this therapy and not rejected in 50% of the cases. But also understand the biomarkers that actually they are there but we cannot see and also connect to the environment of the patient to really create personalized therapies. That's exactly what graphing can do. So we can miniaturized, we can read with much higher density and resolution and undercover biomarkers that we have not seen before. And we can couple with modern electronics and bring external sensors and the environment of the data, the environment of the patient, the data of the environment of the patient to actually create that closed loop and that personalization. So combining with all these real life environment patient data, in our case, the strategy is to start from there already remembers, let's say most known VCI in the market, which is DBS ring can be done interface. It's a great potential but there's less than 30 implants worldwide. So start from there and then climb the penetration, central nervous system, and then finally reach the peripheral nervous system and combine the neuro electronics with a bio electronics market making a 25 billion opportunity. How we're going to do it for the last decades the brain has been decoded and monitored nuclei by nuclei, we will never get there. If we continue like that we go pathway by pathway network by network. The first opportunity is Parkinson's disease. And what we do is look at the Nigris three hour pathway where we actually place an interface on the cortex, an interface on the subthalamic nucleus, I look at the deviations of biomarkers that are pathological recording, correct them and make sure that the patient is the highest percent that on time and regaining the quality of life. At the end, the body of the neurons are deep in the brain, but everything converges in the cortex creating these unique pathways for motor foresight and so on. This is exactly what the technology is going to do. And this is exactly what we are building. We have a cortical brain computer interface module that can go to super ultra high density or 2024 cores That's just like Elon Musk. And we have a subcortical module and everything gets together into a powerful, intelligent chip that is head mounted with hybrid connectivity to the outside world and to a real life, data analysis and processing. I'm not talking about InNervia. Here, I said this is the Merck collaboration is kind of confidential as well. But you know, at the end, this is the connection we will attempt to do very much in the future. Now, this is double clicking just on the interfacing and leaving aside the cheap. This is how it compares to the standard of care. So here you have current technology, Boston, Medtronic, Abbott. And these are the sizes that we have today. This is the lead in the cortex that you will get if you have a brain tumor resection. And this is what you will get operated, if you will have Parkinson's is now this is how we compare 10 times smaller than the standard of care. Now you need these because in the same craniotomy, where we are going to put two contacts, we put 60 contacts as simile, metric size and density. So what graphene give us here is two important features. One, we can miniaturize as we said, graphene can inject 200 times more charge density at 10 times lower impedance. So Battery Management, I mean dualization is key. And then we can see 10 times better those biomarkers so we can detect them and act upon that. We have performed studies in small and large animals. This is the sheep study that we did visability and also completed GLP. Would you see here is the metal concurrence that we have today? And would you read? So we two contacts, which is the maximum that you can fit at that size in the brain? That's how much you read first is not a very good signal. Second, what information did you get out of that signal? Right? Same for Parkinson's. So the time times, time times better visibility that you get with in brain actually allow us not only to see and react, but also to understand what's going on there. This is the 60 contact interface that we put into the somatosensory cortex of a shape. And then we touch the tongue on that shape. And you can see that the darker the color, the more it corresponds to the tongue, right? So you actually understand what's going on there versus two lines that don't tell you much. One neurosurgeon in Madrid in Barcelona actually told me, this is like wanted to go to Seville, and the GPS tells you you are in Europe, right? Now we have done that in other in with other evoked potential, so upper lip neck. And again, we can see exactly what's going on. If this would be a robotic arm, we will know exactly which finger do we have to connect to actually have fine movement. And again, for our acute cortical applications, if this was a tumor resection procedure, you can safely and precisely remove the tumor without affecting functional areas. I don't know what you prefer if you have a human or a tumor on the brain. Now, the other thing is that we can see things others cannot see. So here you see the contact of the five millimeter square. And then you have the comparison with a one millimeter square graphene. Now everybody wants to close the loop with beta bands. Why because it's the only thing metal see metal see blah, sorry, platen on and either you don't see beta run very clearly. But then if you want to actually close the loop significantly for patients, there's a lot more information we're not seeing this is like having a very old microscope, right on the metal side, and then suddenly having a good microscope that shows you what is there so you can create the antibiotic for that bacteria, let's say. And then if you go to the 25 micrometers, which are almost invisible, you start seeing also other biomarkers that are extremely relevant, like high frequency oscillations are extremely relevant to closing the loop. We have done also subcortical investigations, we can see Parkinsonian rats deep in the brain from the cortex to the STM single unit activity and modulation of the beta band with no problem. And of course with all these high density and resolution, we need a very strong data backbone to actually do the signal processing in life, but also to create predictions both to help physicians and patients and empower the healthcare system. We have in a year because we got serious as in March, we have done a lot of achievements. We are preparing towards our cortical first inhuman, we have clear Biocom GLP safety study subcortical testing, and we still have one more year of cash. So we know we're confident that we are going to reach our milestone to then go for the 55 million Series B and the most important is the team. People that have done it again. And again, we come from Medtronic, Philips, Sapiens that was acquired by Medtronic and finally onward and all these people came to embrace realize this purpose and this mission. Finally, we have an amazing global clinical board. And we just created the vision board, where we just confirmed the winner the Nobel Prize graphing winner joining us to keep on looking at what is next after graphene and what graphene can give us at the highest potential and also David Eagleman, which is a neuroscientist at Stanford and now third there. So, we are bringing today visibility. We are scientists and humanity lovers. We are going to make this happen. And we need more visionary investors that joined us in our board with the right personalities and with the right constructive mentality to drive and pave the way for revolutionary neurotech. Thank you so much for listening to me today.