Great Lakes NeuroTechnologies has secured $4.5 million in new grant funding that the company will use in part to further develop its Parkinson’s disease monitoring technology.
The funding comes through the National Institutes of Health’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, according to a statement from Valley View, Ohio-based Great Lakes.
The larger grant, about $3 million, from the National Institute on Aging, will go toward enhancing the company’s Kinesia HomeView technology platform. Great Lakes plans to add capabilities that would enable the technology to evaluate gait and balance in response to medication and deep brain stimulation.
Great Lakes’ Kinesia movement disorder assessment technology uses a ring-like sensor worn on a patient’s finger to measure motor symptoms and wirelessly transmit data on the severity of a patient’s tremors.
Understanding the type and severity of tremors a patient experiences will help doctors better prescribe medications to minimize the patient’s fluctuations throughout the course of a day, according to Great Lakes.
“This funding will provide significant growth opportunities for Great Lakes NeuroTechnologies in the commercial marketplace,” said Joe Giuffrida, Great Lakes’ president. “Our Kinesia HomeView technology platform for assessing Parkinson’s disease will be greatly enhanced through the addition of gait and balance monitoring.”
Another grant, from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, will go toward developing a wireless physiological monitor and Web-based curriculum to teach neuroscience to high school students.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Great Lakes received another $2 million in NIH grants late last year.
The Kinesia device was cleared for marketing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2007. Great Lakes has been around since 2006 as a division of Cleveland Medical Devices, but was spun off last year as a standalone company to focus on movement disorders.
