Electroceutics
All diseases are caused by nerves
Google's daughter and the British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline have established a company, the transaction amount is $715 million. This is a landmark event – the game has reached a new level.
In a nutshell: bioelectric medicine relies on electrical action instead of chemical. The target is mainly nerve fibers. Instead of pills and medicines – implants or wearable devices.
Why is it gaining strength? Two main reasons.
First, technology is developing: micro, nano, computing power, new materials (biocompatible soft electronics), etc. From fresh – neural dust, sensors the size of a grain of sand, they can be placed in the body, and they work.
Secondly, the meager "successes" of pharmacology in the treatment of neurological disorders – everything is really sad there. And everyone understands that the trend of diseases of the nervous system will only increase (the aging of the population, the stresses of the modern world).
Why is the deal a landmark? Because a new major player has appeared, and the bet has soared by an order of magnitude. The game started a few years ago, if you don't look too far, it's clear that pacemakers and DBS (Deep Brain Stimulation, deep brain stimulation) have taken root in medicine for a long time. But the countdown began in earnest with the experiments of Kevin Tracy (vagus nerve stimulation) and the arrival of Chris Famm as head of GSK Bioelectronics R&D.
Famm convinced GSK to invest $25 million in Tracy's company. Then he announced the Bioelectronics Innovation Challenge: $1 million will be awarded to the one who "will be the first to create a small, implantable, wireless device that can record, stimulate and block the functionally specific nerve signals of a particular visceral organ."
That was three years ago. At first, ten selected teams received $ 200 thousand each, today there are three finalists left – they were given a million each for research. The winner will take another million.
In two years, DARPA and NIH were involved. Now Google. And $715 million is already money.
The name of the new company: Galvani Bioelectronics. It was headed by Chris Famm.
A new strategy perpendicular to pharmacology is being born before our eyes. Medicine will change, but not only due to gene therapy, which they like to write about. It will change by switching to a new language of dialogue with the body. This language is electric.
The nervous system envelops and permeates everything. It is the main regulator of internal processes, from emotions and thinking to digestion and excretion. Learn to "program" at this level, and you won't have to pick at the bottom, in the molecules (at least often). The molecules are interchangeable, and therefore deceive.
Another idea, more philosophical, is hidden here: the transition from a passive organism to an active one. Not to do the work for him, introducing the missing substances, but to restart their production. Turn on the program. Including regeneration.
But even without any philosophy, it is clear: the area is very intriguing and on the rise. The market volume will grow rapidly. Draw conclusions.
I will conclude with a preamble to the symposium on bioelectronic medicine, which will be held in September 2016:
…we step closer to the promise of bioelectronic medicine — to naturally reproduce a drug's therapeutic reaction by mobilizing the body's natural reflexes to develop effective, safe and economical alternatives to pills and injectables.
(... we are taking a new step towards a promising direction – bioelectronic medicine, which will naturally reproduce the therapeutic effect of the drug, i.e. by mobilizing the natural reflexes of the body to develop effective, safe and economical alternatives to tablets and injections – VM).
See also the article by Birmingham et al. Bioelectronic medicines: A research roadmap published in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.
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29.08.2016