High-Tech Gründerfonds Invests in EBS Technologies – The Medical Technology Company Begins Two Clinical Studies
March 4, 2009
EBS Technologies is proud to announce that seed financing has been obtained from two sources – the High-Tech Gründerfonds, a prominent German public-private investment fund for start-up companies, as well as the Investitionsbank des Landes Brandenburg, an investment bank in the German state of Brandenburg. This funding will enable EBS Technologies to complete a randomized, placebo-controlled double-blind study as well as to conduct a second single-center phase-II study of its innovative new treatment method.
In Germany alone, over 200,000 people suffer a stroke each year. Two-thirds of stroke victims experience speech and visual impairments that often persist for months or even years. Due to demographic trends, experts fear that the number of first-time stroke patients will rise dramatically in coming years. Current treatment methods for speech and visual impairments are time-consuming, expensive, complicated, and often not very effective.
EBS Technologies is developing a medical device and associated treatment technique to address these shortcomings: Weak AC pulses are applied to patients via electrodes placed on the scalp. Like an external metronome, the pulses encourage the brain to recover its natural electrical synchronization. The treatment promotes considerable and verifiable recovery in patients suffering from speech and visual-field impairments associated with neurological damage. The therapy rests upon the natural neuroplasticity of the brain and its incredible ability to recover lost function – even after serious injury.
The therapy offers considerable advantages for patients over existing treatment options: A complete treatment cycle takes just 10–20 days and is not physically demanding.
The inventors of the device and therapy principle – Prof. Bernhard Sabel and Dr. Anton Federov – have already conducted over 15 years of initial research and observational studies on over 1,000 patients. In this way, EBS Technologies is a significant step ahead of the research institutions and companies who have been devoting increasing attention to the topic of non-invasive electro stimulation over the past three years. EBS Technologies now aims to expand this lead over the competition.
“The therapy technique helps patients who have suffered a stroke or other brain trauma to recover functional deficits in speech and sight in a faster and more efficient manner. An additional benefit is that therapy is both pain-free and without side effects,” said Prof. Sabel, founder and chair of the company’s Medical Advisory Board, with regard to the therapy’s advantages.
“We were impressed by the therapy’s already extensive proof of concept. The single-center study will allow the company to achieve key growth milestones in the seed phase, which we hope will attract additional investors,” said Dr. Caroline Fichtner, an investment manager with the High-Tech Gründerfonds.
Contact:
EBS Technologies GmbH
Albert-Einstein-Ring 7
D 14532 Kleinmachnow
Fon +49 33203 50 383
Fax +49 33203 50 389
kornelia.sabel@ebstech.de
www.ebstech.de
About High-Tech Gründerfonds
High-Tech Gründerfonds invests venture capital in young, high-opportunity technology companies implementing promising research results in an entrepreneurial manner. The start-up companies are planned to lead their R&D projects to the production of a prototype or a “proof of concepts” or market launch by means of seed financing of up to 500k EUR. High-Tech Gründerfonds has a fund volume of around 272m EUR. Investors of the public-private partnership are the Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology, the KfW bank group as well as the six industrial groups BASF, Deutsche Telekom, Siemens, Robert Bosch, Daimler and Carl Zeiss.
Contact:
Dr. Caroline Fichtner
High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH
Ludwig-Erhard-Allee 2
53175 Bonn
Germany
Tel: +49 228 96568500
Fax: +49 228 96568550
info@high-tech-gruenderfonds.de
www.high-tech-gruenderfonds.de
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