On March 15th 2015, Tim Buckinx’ son said: “Papa, you work in digital, can’t you create a light that turns on when my brain switches off?” At ten years old, he was simply fed up with the daily impact of his refractory epilepsy. That pain became a vision, and that vision became the Belgian digital therapeutics company epihunter, aimed at enabling people with a brain disorder to participate more fully in society while generating real-world data for faster diagnosis and optimized treatments.
The company’s beachhead product, available in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, is for people with absence epilepsy, the most common pediatric epilepsy syndrome causing absence seizures, which mostly look like daydreaming. Yet for the person themselves, an absence seizure is a full blackout with no recollection of what happened. People with this type of epilepsy can suffer up to 200 seizures per day, causing tremendous impact on daily life. Unnecessary impact.
The company built a digital platform that applies real-time AI to wearable electroencephalograms (EEG) to externalize brain state changes that provide real-time digital interventions to reduce the daily life impact of a brain disorder and to generate real-world data for better treatments.
The company’s continuous search for the latest innovation in EEG wearables, brought epihunter to Neeuro, a Singapore-based global company using digital therapeutics for brain fitness and agility.
“We want to normalize the daily lives of people with a brain disorder and also empower these communities,” according to Tim, “in Neeuro, we have found a partner and common platform that will help develop the next generation of our solutions.”
Thus, the partnership between Neeuro and epihunter was born. A Memorandum of Understanding was recently signed, aiming to create solutions for brain disorders, with an initial focus on multiple epilepsies. “Together, we will develop the next generation of rigorously clinically validated products and services that address multiple use cases in epilepsy and beyond,” adds Tim.
“Neeuro has always been keen on working with innovative partners, using their digital therapeutics solutions for mental issues and brain disorders, co-Founder and CEO of Neeuro Alvin Chan notes. “NeeuroOS being flexible in its capacities, provides relevant and accurate data to track seizures and other brain state changes. We share epihunter’s mission to improve the lives of those affected by brain disorders, through further collaboration in education, meaningful outreach, and other related programs.”
Neeuro SenzeBand, through the AI/machine learning platform NeeuroOS, enables partners to develop their own solutions by leveraging the data and libraries that the SenzeBand and NeeuroOS provide.
With November being Epilepsy Awareness Month in the US and beyond where an estimate of four out of 100 people are to develop epilepsy during their lifetime, this partnership supports people to find solutions aimed to alleviate the impact of the condition on their daily lives, but also for increased awareness and empower communities worldwide.
There are an estimated 65 million people with epilepsy worldwide. 1 in 3 people continue to suffer from seizures, despite medication.
Epihunter’s innovative beachhead product signals the occurrence of difficult to notice absence seizures in real-time to create instant awareness to a teacher in a classroom and alleviates reporting pressure from parents. Neeuro’s digital therapeutic solutions use brain training to help improve attention issues. The collaboration with epihunter will enable both companies’ technologies to extend their range of offerings for multiple brain disorders.
Neeuro is a global company that specialises in the utilisation of Brain-Computer Interface technology to maximise the potential of users’ neurological agility and fitness. Neeuro’s extensive portfolio and an array of offerings empower digital therapeutics and brain fitness solutions and are backed by clinically-validated research by A*STAR, an institution widely known as being at the forefront of Singapore’s research endeavors.
Contact details:
epihunter nv
Kempische Steenweg 303/200
3500 Hasselt
Belgium