Paradromics will work with Siemens Healthineers on the imaging workflow around Connexus, its implanted brain-computer interface. The two plan protocols covering candidacy assessment, neural target identification, surgical planning, navigation and validation, using MRI, CT and vascular scans. Neither company disclosed financial terms.
Connexus puts more than 400 electrodes in a cortical module smaller than a dime, placed through a craniotomy and connected by leads to a control unit under the skin of the chest. Paradromics completed its first human implant this year in a feasibility study that will enroll up to 10 participants. Two sheep implants have produced stable neural recordings for four years, and the company targets a device lifetime of at least a decade.
Functional MRI helped place the electrodes in that first patient, who has a motor neuron disease that severely slurs speech. The companies now plan to compare fMRI predictions against activity Connexus actually records, a direct test of how well personalized imaging picks the right cortex.
Chief clinical officer William Marks put the commercial logic plainly: "We want to make things easy for hospitals, not require them to buy and train on bespoke capital equipment." An implant that needs its own scanner protocol and its own capital install limits a company to the few academic centers willing to build around it.