Repair For Traumatic Brain Injury Coming Now From Phoenix-Based Startup BMSEED

Press release from the City of Phoenix:

May 28, 2020

“It was the pivotal moment,” said Oliver Graudejus. It was 2007, and he was sitting in a workshop at the University of Michigan. In what seems a lifetime ago, Graudejus watched a demonstration of neuromodulation change a Parkinson’s Disease patient’s life from unlivable to near-normal.

It wasn’t that devices at that time were technological “iron lungs,” but some were inconvenient for daily patient life. It’s the belief there was a better way. That was the eureka moment for Graudejus, founder and CEO of BioMedical Sustainable Elastic Electronic Devices, headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. He was determined to invent a more effective manner of pushing electrical pulses to a patient’s brain-implanted stimulator.

Neuromodulation is a technique that addresses one of the most profound challenges in the medical profession, how to repair and reverse the consequences of traumatic brain injuries and other brain diseases. TBI is one of the leading causes of death and disability among children and young adults in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

BMSEED is one of three Phoenix companies to be selected to compete globally in the Bio International organization’s 2020 Startup Stadium. The Stadium selects 30 startups from hundreds of applicants around the world to compete for venture capital, strategic partnerships and customers in early June. This is the second year in the row three startups from Phoenix made it to the final round. Last year, more than 16,000 people attended the Bio International conference, where the Phoenix companies competed. This year the conference is virtual.

“BMSEED’s quest to help treat traumatic brain injuries brings both a solution and hope for affected individuals and their loved ones,” said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego. “They are a great example of the many vibrant startups that have made Phoenix home.“

An estimated 2.5 million Americans each year suffer a TBI. Over a quarter million are hospitalized and survive, but often with overwhelming physical and mental impairment. This is all about biomimetic technology, fooling the body’s immune system not to recognize the device as a foreign object, which makes it far more effective and sustainable for human use.

“BMSEED’s first product is a research tool that helps researchers develop treatments to mitigate the damage after a traumatic brain injury. This product, called the MicroElectrode Array Stretching Stimulating und Recording Equipment, called “MEASSuRE”, is urgently needed because all of the 30 clinical trials to develop treatments for traumatic brain injury over the past 25 years have failed.

The product reproduces the biomechanical environment of cells during the injury, and our stretchable electrodes allow the assessment of cell health and function,” Graudejus said. “That’s where BMSEED technology comes in, making soft, flexible and stretchable electrodes. The next step is to use these electrodes inside the body, with the goal that the body doesn’t see the device as a foreign object and try to reject it.” Neural interface technology faces the fundamental challenge of the body’s reaction to expel foreign objects.

Previous generations of biotech interfaces between the devices and the human body have resulted in cumbersome hard-material electrodes and uncomfortably large external devices that the body tries to reject. This is the problem that our electrodes could help solve.

“It’s important working and collaborating with people who aren’t like-minded,” he said. “Failing to do so may result in something you think is good, but it may not be relevant for anybody.”

BMSEED collaborates with professor Barclay Morrison III’s Neurotrauma and Repair Laboratory at the Biomedical Engineering Department at Columbia University, New York City.

“This profound need for improvements in the prevention and treatment of TBI is the driving force behind our research,” said Barclay Morrison III, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering, Columbia University, New York. Dr. Morrison leads the Neurotrauma and Repair Laboratory at the university. “Our long-term goal is to understand the consequences of mechanical forces on the most complex system of the human body, the brain.”

BMSEED’s development of smaller, softer and thinner electrodes is a new generation of technology creating flexible implants. Made from a proprietary micro-cracked gold film embedded between two layers of silicone, Graudejus developed the core principle from 2006 to 2009 while working at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.

“The MEASSure system will provide researchers with a valuable new tool for mechanically stimulating cells while recording electrophysiological activity,” said Dr. Morrison. “Those capabilities open up a world of novel studies that weren't possible before.”

“I wanted to do something with the rest of my life that was going to have an impact,” said Graudejus. “The very different challenge from the technical issues that we have to overcome is there's always more you can do to a product to improve. I would say that's our biggest challenge.”

Getting the company name out there is another challenge BMSEED is facing. Already its product is at a stage adequate to sell to the prototype to its first commercial customer, the United States Army. Being on the virtual Startup Stadium stage will help overcome this challenge, with thousands of bioscience professionals being exposed to the company.

Sales, marketing and growing to scale are the biggest funding needs BMSEED faces, according to the CEO. Non-dilutive funding from foundations and the National Institute of Health paid for development costs. The company has raised nearly $3 million from the two sources.

“Some improvements on intellectual property, a proper manufacturing facility along with the sales and marketing, this is what we need to fund now,” he said. “With development costs covered by others, we believe this is an attractive opportunity for investors.”

Graudejus said that they’d had excellent success with his team working in the laboratory at the Gateway College Center for Entrepreneurial Innovation. The pandemic has created some challenges with the CEO working at home and other team members dividing time between the CEI lab and home-based work environments.

“I’m grateful to my team for keeping the work going,” he said.

CEI, which is developing its second location in Downtown Phoenix, is part of the Phoenix Bioscience Ecosystem and is another milestone on the Flinn Foundation Arizona Bioscience Roadmap.

Phoenix is America’s fifth-largest with the most population growth of any U.S. city for the last four years. The city has invested over $500 million with its partners into the downtown Phoenix Biomedical Campus. The city has also invested millions into the Arizona Health Solutions campus of Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University. Public and private bioscience and healthcare organizations are committing more than $3 billion to develop 4.6 million square feet of new facilities in the city of Phoenix. The Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metro area is the tenth most populous in the U.S., having passed the Boston-Cambridge-Newton Massachusetts-New Hampshire metro area in 2019.

This press release was produced by the City of Phoenix. The views expressed here are the author’s own.