Ex-Neuralink President Invests in competitor Synchron Inc
Synchron aims to treat conditions like paralysis by inserting its Stentrode implant in human brains. Similar to Neuralink, which also plans to use implanted devices to help treat paralysis and similar conditions.
- Max Hodak, who left Neuralink last year, has invested in Synchron and joined its advisory board
Saying that the company’s technology could benefit tens of millions of patients.
Unlike Neuralink, whose device will be implanted by drilling into skulls, Synchron to implant its device via blood vessels, which Hodak called “a different, really quite elegant idea.”
Synchron has already tried the Stentrode in four patients and has received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permission to launch a clinical trial.
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Brain computer interfaces have become a hot investor area.
Neuralink, which raised $205 million last year, is the best-capitalized, but plenty of others exist, like Paradromics Inc. and Precision Corp., as well as Synchron.
Hodak became president of Neuralink in 2017. When he left, “it wasn’t my choice,” he wrote in his post.
“There was a lot left there I still wanted to do.
“I really don’t want this to be construed as a knock on Neuralink,” Hodak said in an email, bloomberg reports, adding that he has not sold any of his Neuralink stock.
