INSIGHTEC Announces MR-guided Focused Ultrasound to Treat Essential Tremor Received Funding by National Health Service (NHS) England
HAIFA, Israel and MIAMI, Nov. 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- INSIGHTEC®, a global healthcare company focused on the therapeutic power of acoustic energy, today announced that the National Health Service (NHS) England has approved funding for MR-guided Focused Ultrasound for the treatment of medication-refractory Essential Tremor patients from April 2021. The NHS England is the publicly funded healthcare system for England.
Essential Tremor is a neurological condition that causes shaking of the hands, head and voice, but may also cause the legs and trunk to shake. The tremor begins mildly and progresses over time, and in some patients, is severe enough to interfere with daily activities, such as personal care, writing, eating, or getting dressed. Essential Tremor affects an estimated 41 million people around the globe.
"For the approximately 50% of Essential Tremor patients who do not get satisfactory relief from medications, having another accessible treatment option available that is incisionless, and often results in immediate relief, is a major breakthrough," commented Prof Dipankar Nandi, MD, Consultant Neurosurgeon, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, who treated Essential Tremor patients under a clinical trial.
MR-guided Focused Ultrasound uses high intensity sound waves, guided by magnetic resonance imaging, to target and treat the area of brain responsible for the tremor. It is an incisionless treatment option which is often performed in an outpatient setting. Focused Ultrasound treatment is currently being performed at nearly 70 medical institutions across the USA, Europe and Asia.
"St. Mary's in London has been a research partner in the development of this technology and is the first center in the UK to offer Focused Ultrasound for medication-refractory Essential Tremor patients," said Maurice R. Ferré MD, INSIGHTEC CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors. "Reimbursement in England and around the globe is critical to help people living with debilitating tremor improve their quality of life."
Tirat Carmel-based Insightec produces magnetic resonance (MR)-guided focused ultrasound equipment. The company’s Exablate Neuro incisionless neurosurgery platform is the first such device to gain U.S. FDA approval for two movement-related neurological indications – medication-refractory essential tremor in 2016 and medication-refractory tremor from Parkinson’s disease in 2018. The platform is CE-marked for both indications, as well as for neuropathic pain.
Last March, Insightec inked definitive agreements for a $150 million series F financing led by Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), a subsidiary of Koch Industries. The round had a post-money valuation of $1.3 billion.
Brett Chugg, managing director at KDT, saw potential in Insightec early on. “We recognized that Insightec was going to be very disruptive, with an order of magnitude better outcomes and order of magnitude lower costs for patients and health care providers,” he told BioWorld. “Insightec’s technology puts patients’ wellbeing first by disrupting the traditional approach to treating neurological diseases – like essential tremor, the most common movement disorder – that can have a significant impact on quality of life.”
In August, KDT added a second Israeli med-tech venture to its portfolio, leading a $71 million series D round in Sight Diagnostics Ltd. Based in Tel Aviv, the company makes the first direct-from fingerstick complete blood count analyzer approved by the FDA. The system’s artificial intelligence (AI) engine uses machine vision that assesses blood imagery to identify cell types and anomalies – essentially turning a sample into more than 1,000 images – at the point of care.
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