Case Western Reserve University licenses neuromodulation technology to Pennsylvania company

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Case Western Reserve University has licensed to a Pennsylvania company the right to make and sell three types of electrodes and a control unit used by researchers to do their neuromodulation work.

Ardiem Medical Inc., an implantable medical device maker in Indiana, Pa., gets the nonexclusive right to make intramuscular recording and stimulating electrodes, epimysial recording and stimulating electrodes, spiral cuff peripheral nerve electrodes, and a universal external control unit developed by the university’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Cleveland Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) Center, according to a release.

Additional details of the agreement were not disclosed.

The Cleveland FES Center, a consortium that includes MetroHealth System and the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center, as well as Case Western Reserve, is pioneering clinical use of electrical currents to cause paralyzed limbs to stand or grasp, activate body functions such as bladder control or breathing, create the feeling of touch, or stop pain or muscle spasms.

Neuromodulation is one of the fastest-growing areas of medicine, according to Case.