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To secure funding, medtech companies think strategically.

With a few exceptions, investors have bet more cautiously on medtech than other healthcare sectors over the past few years. Creative thinking has kept many companies funded while venture capital firms put their money into more lucrative sectors, such as biopharma.

It was baseball that first drew Will Rosellini to the field of neurotechnology.

Rosellini, a retired professional minor-league pitcher, could not stop thinking about the role the nervous system played in the game.  

“I was fascinated with the idea that some pitchers when they were practicing could throw 80 miles an hour, but when you put them in front of lights and people their body could deliver the pitch 15 miles an hour faster, based purely on having adrenaline in the nervous system,” he said. “That set me off on a quest to understand the nervous system.”

Benzinga recently had the chance to chat with Will Rosellini, a 37-year-old retired pro baseball player with six graduate degrees who now serves as the CEO of Nexeon MedStems, a company that has developed a neurostimulation system for the treatment of neurological diseases.

In previous articles, the entrepreneur talked about his story, the future of neurotech, the incursions of Facebook Inc FB 0.35%’s Mark Zukerberg and Tesla Inc TSLA 2.23%’s Elon Musk into the field, Nexeon’s deal with GlaxoSmithKline plc (ADR) GSK 2.2%, the company’s products and other brain stimulation technologies in the market.

An implanted device can improve the ability of certain stroke victims to relearn movement, according to the results of a nine-month-long study released today at the International Neuromodulation Society Conference in Edinburgh, UK. Doctors working with Dallas, Tex.,-based Microtransponder implanted a device that electrically stimulates the vagus nerve on the left side of a patient’s neck at the exact moments when he or she is doing movements that are components of standard physical therapy sessions. At the end of six weeks, 75 percent of patients who had their vagus nerve stimulated during physical therapy saw a clinically meaningful benefit, compared with 33 percent of those in the therapy-only control group, according to Microtranspnder. That number went up to 88 percent at 90 days, and continued to show gains at six months and nine months.

Late Breaking Long Term Clinical Study Results at the International Neuromodulation Society Conference Show Continued Improvement for Stroke Patients and a New 120 Patient Stroke Trial Will Begin Enrollment this Summer

DALLAS, TX--(Marketwired - May 30, 2017) - MicroTransponder, Inc., (www.microtransponder.com) today unveiled new positive long-term positive clinical trial results from the Vivistim™ Stroke Rehabilitation trial. The objective of this multicenter, double-blind, randomized, active-controlled trial was to improve upper limb mobility in stroke survivors suffering chronic disability. The data was presented by Jesse Dawson M.D., University of Glasgow Hospital, and Teresa Kimberley, PhD, University of Minnesota Hospital. They presented the data to the clinicians gathered at the International Neuromodulation Society (INS) conference in Edinburgh, UK. The data showed 75% of patients had a clinically meaningful response on the Fugl-Meyer Upper Extremity Scale (FMUE) at the end of a six weeks of physical therapy compared to 33% for the control group. 90 days after the six weeks of physical therapy ended 88% of VNS patients had responded compared to 33% in the control arm. And during the long-term portion of the study average FMUE scores continued to increase, with the 6 month and 9 month data showing further gains. All responders indicated they believed their overall health had improved and were satisfied with the therapy.

Benzinga recently had the chance to chat with Will Rosellini, a 37-year-old retired pro baseball player who now holds six graduate degrees and currently serves as the CEO of Nexeon MedSystems, a company that has developed a neurostimulation system for the treatment of neurological diseases.

Liege, Belgium -- Nexeon Medsystems Belgium, SPRL ("Nexeon Belgium" or the "Company") announced today that it has received certification from DEKRA Certification B.V. that the Company complies with the European requirements of ISO 13485 and EN ISO 13485 for a comprehensive quality management system for the design and manufacture of the company’s implantable neurostimulation system. Company management has described this as a critical milestone on the path to launching its neuromodulation platform, both for its leading indication in deep brain stimulation ("DBS") for Parkinson's disease as well as follow-on products for other neurological diseases.