2012-11-12 09:06:07 -

Sapiens Steering Brain Stimulation BV /
Sapiens announces start of IMPACT, a 5M€ European project to improve Deep Brain 
Stimulation 
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Munich, Germany, and Eindhoven, the Netherlands, November 12, 2012 - Today, an
international consortium, led by Sapiens Steering Brain Stimulation B.V., a
medical device company, has announced the official start of IMPACT, a
collaborative European project focusing on the development of an innovative
patient-specific approach for Deep Brain Stimulation therapy. IMPACT aims to
improve the lives of Parkinson's disease patients by reducing the disease side-
effects through deep brain stimulation.

Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is an established treatment for Parkinson's
disease, essential tremor and dystonia. DBS can be considered as a   'brain
pacemaker'; mild electrical stimuli are delivered to the brain via implanted
leads, to reduce symptoms like tremor, slowness of movement, stiffness and
impairment of balance. For Parkinson's disease alone, over 50,000 patients are
diagnosed each year in Europe.

Due to the lack of personalized treatment options, around 15-30% of DBS patients
suffer from stimulation-induced side-effects. IMPACT is a 5.0M€ project
sponsored by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Union that
aims to tackle this lack of personalized treatment options in the next four
years.

The consortium partners will contribute according to their respective expertise
to the development of a direct-feedback image-based expert tuning tool to
improve the positioning and programming (tuning) of Steering Brain Stimulation
(SBS) implants in a patient-specific manner. The system will combine pre- and
post-operative imaging data, high-resolution electrical recordings of the
patients' brain activity and bio-statistical data about DBS target areas to
better analyze and avoid the stimulation-induced side-effects from which some
patients continue to suffer. The initial development work is expected to be
completed within 24 to 36 months. The project shall report results in four years
from now.

"Brain-model-based tuning is an unexplored field and is the key for moving DBS
from a last-resort therapy to a clinically superior solution that is tailored
and evidence-based. The IMPACT consortium is uniquely positioned to translate
the therapeutic benefits that steering brain stimulation can provide to clinical
practice", says Hubert Martens, Director Clinical Science & Applications and Co-
Founder of Sapiens.

More information about IMPACT can be found at:  www.impact-fp7.eu.

About the consortium
Led by Sapiens Steering Brain Stimulation B.V., the consortium brings together
three clinical partners: the University Hospital Cologne (Germany), ICM: the
Brain & Spine Institute (France), and University Hospital Umeå (Sweden), these
hospitals will provide the clinical expertise and research data; three SME
(Small and Medium Enterprise) companies: Sapiens Steering Brain Stimulation
B.V.(Netherlands), Twente Medical Systems International B.V. (Netherlands), and
ICsense N.V. (Belgium), will provide software, hardware and equipment expertise;
and two technical research partners: Linköping University (Sweden) and
Fraunhofer MEVIS and Fraunhofer MEVIS Project Group on Image Registration
(Germany) will provide the algorithm expertise.

About Sapiens
Sapiens Steering Brain Stimulation is an emerging medical device company whose
mission is to bring a revolutionized concept of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) to
more patients who can benefit from this advanced treatment of degenerative or
functional brain disorders, such as Parkinson's disease, dystonia and other
currently emerging indications.

 Sapiens' ambition is to improve the therapeutic outcome of DBS, to shorten and
simplify the clinical procedure, and to improve patient comfort. Sapiens' high-
resolution probe enables the reduction of stimulation-induced side-effects by
precisely steering the tiny stimulation currents to the intended target area.
The SureSuite(®) products, SurePlan(®), SurePlace(®) and SureTune(®), provide an
integrated, image-based solution for planning and programming an optimal DBS
treatment. SureStim(®), the Sapiens implant, is MRI-conditionally safe, and
controls the steering.

 With offices in Eindhoven, the Netherlands and Munich, Germany, Sapiens was
founded in 2011. The Company is a spin-out of Royal Philips Electronics, and is
backed by Wellington Partners, Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, Life
Sciences Partners (LSP) and the Wellcome Trust. Its Steering Brain Stimulation
probe, implant and image-guided programming are based upon patents-pending
technologies.

Contact:

Hubert Martens
Director CS&A
Sapiens Steering Brain Stimulation
Tel. +31 40 8002100
info@sapiensneuro.com


Press Release PDF: 
 hugin.info/147880/R/1656906/535786.pdf



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