Jan 27, 2025
In this episode of the Neural Implant Podcast, host Ladan
Jiracek engages in an insightful dialogue with
Andreas
Forsland, founder and CEO of
Cognixion. The discussion covers
Cognixion's pioneering augmented reality headset with EEG sensing,
designed to enhance communication for individuals with speech and
motor challenges. Andreas describes the journey from creating a
speech augmentation device to developing a versatile platform, the
Axon-R, which is now being utilized by health systems and
researchers for various clinical applications. They explore the
platform's form factor, capabilities, and its role in empowering
others to create specialized applications.
Top 3 Takeaways:
- "We aimed to make it easy for
both non-technical and technical users to build simple research
applications as well as complex, immersive commercial applications.
Initially, it was an internal product we developed for rapid
prototyping and exploring neurophysiology. But we realized many
others wanted the same capabilities to build their own
apps."
- "Go ahead and integrate with
Apple Vision Pro or a Meta Quest device, but be aware that you're
going to face a lot of problems. The clinical trial process is
expensive and time-consuming, and what we've found is that some
people who’ve tried this route end up with only 10 to 15 percent
usable data. Wasting 80 to 85 percent of your data because of poor
technology or failure to meet IRB standards for medical safety and
efficacy is a huge waste. If you're pursuing anything in
healthcare, you need to build on a reliable platform like
Cognixion."
- "You could invest in 10
software-as-a-medical-device (SMD) applications, which are
subscription-based or software-based apps that deliver clinically
valid outcomes. Building and validating such an application might
cost anywhere from $3 to $10 million to bring it to
commercialization. In contrast, building a traditional medical
device could cost anywhere from $25 to $200 million, usually for
just one indication. The key cost savings here is that you don’t
need to invest in bespoke hardware—we've already invested over $25
million in developing the validated hardware and
platform."
00:45
"Do you want to explain your product and introduce yourself
better than I just did?"
04:45 "So the
platform, what does it look like? What's the form
factor?
10:00 "Where
would where would they likely use it?"
14:45 "How does
it compare to implantable technologies like Synchron or Neuralink?
Obviously, with a wearable-only technology, the fidelity must be
lower, correct?"
25:15 "What
kind of savings does this represent? How much does it help others
who want to develop this type of technology?
28:45 "So how
would you prevent other companies from doing something like
this?"
33:45 "What
role does AI play in your guys company?"
39:00 "Is
there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to
mention?"