When MBJ asked Mark Myers what he did over the weekend, he said the “ever-living hamster wheel” of work took up most of his time.
Look at his various responsibilities, and you’ll see what he means.
Myers is an adjunct professor at Christian Brothers University (CBU); an assistant professor of anatomy and neurobiology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC); and a project management consultant for FedEx.
And, while he's doing all that teaching, researching, and consulting for Memphis’ largest company, he’s also leading a local medical device startup — with the hope of making the epilepsy diagnosis process considerably easier for patients.
Myers is the CEO and CTO of NeuroDyne, which has developed a portable cap that collects data for an epilepsy diagnosis, all from the patient’s home.
Why is this significant?
Because, as Myers puts it, “In this great movement of mobile health, there’s almost nothing out there that collects anything from the brain, or anything that talks about seizures.”
Little mobility, lots of expenses
Often, Myers explained, data must be collected in a hospital’s epilepsy monitoring unit, where electrodes are attached to the patient’s scalp through an electroencephalogram (EEG), which records the electrical activity of the brain.
“Basically, it’s a great fishnet,” he said. “They’re trying to find as many seizure instances as possible.”
But, in many cases, these electrodes are attached to the scalp with a gel that is difficult to remove and a bundle of wires hooked up to a computer system. You can’t move around much during the testing — Myers said that “even going to the bathroom is a big, big deal” — and the diagnosis process isn’t short.
Myers explained that getting a diagnosis can take four to seven days, an assertion that lines up with what medical institutions have said. On its website, John Hopkins Medicine noted that patients in its epilepsy monitoring units typically stay between three and seven days.
And the costs for these days add up quickly for the patient, insurance, and health provider.
“It’s a very expensive endeavor,” Myers said. “Insurance alleviates probably 70% to 80% of that, but you’re still left with a pretty hefty bill after a four-to-seven-day stay.”
The stay doesn’t necessarily lead to a perfect diagnosis, either. Even data from a weeklong stay might only show one or two seizure instances, which the doctor must use to determine the type of seizure in question and make a diagnosis.
“Even with those meager data points,” Myers said, “A physician has to make a diagnosis.”
The at-home cap
He believes that his startup’s device, however, could fix many of these problems.
Because the patients will be wearing the cap at home rather than the hospital, the cost of diagnosis could be cut drastically.
The NeuroDyne cap doesn’t require the gel, with the electrodes instead being connected with a set of four prongs that are rubbed against the scalp. And it allows for significantly more mobility, as the cap has a Wi-Fi transmitter that sends EEG signals to a tablet.
This tablet has a Wi-Fi receiver and installed with NeuroDyne’s app, which processes the incoming signals.
“We’re taking this idea of being immobile, and now we get to perform data collection at home,” he said. “So, [patients] can move around and can go about their business at home.”
The cap could also collect more data. A reason more data isn’t already collected, he said, is the cost that’s incurred from staying in the hospital. But with that cost alleviated, they can “collect data until the cows come home.”
What's next
NeuroDyne was founded in 2015 and has a $250,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 grant from the National Science Foundation, which was matched with a $100,000 state grant from the entrepreneurial support organization LaunchTN.
Myers’ hope is that they’ll gain an SBIR Phase 2 grant — worth $500,000 to $1 million — and for this, they’ll look for private funding to match it.
The company has already tested the device on five patients and plans to test it on 35 to 40 before seeking FDA approval, which isn’t too far off. Myers said the goal is to have it by the end of the year.
But approval, he believes, is just the beginning — and epilepsy isn’t the only disorder the device could be used for.
“The very next thing we’ll move into is sleep apnea,” Myers said. “Sleep apnea … migraine studies, traumatic brain injuries. … This cap can be used in all of these different pathologies."
