Exablate Neuro wins Galien Award

Exablate Neuro has received international recognition as the Best Medical Technology at the prestigious Prix Galien Awards Gala, held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The Best Medical Technology award confirms the place of Exablate Neuro as a true innovation that is changing the lives of patients living with essential tremor.

The Prix Galien recognizes and awards the efforts of scientists, researchers and companies committed to advancing medical innovation with the power to change the human condition.

Worldwide, the Prix Galien is regarded as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in biopharmaceutical and medical technology research. The awards ceremony was a “black tie” affair with many of the leading drug and device companies nominated and in attendance. Our Vice President of Marketing, Xen Mendelsohn Aderka (see the picture above), accepted the award in the name of the entire Insightec team.

Before candidates can qualify for the award, their products need to have been FDA approved for market within the last five years, and they must show major potential to impact healthcare. The Prix Galien Awards selection committee selected Exablate Neuro from the 11 nominees for the most innovative medical devices of 2017.

While Insightec’s non-invasive focused ultrasound technology has been used by physicians to treat patients suffering from painful bone metastases and uterine fibroids for many years, delivering focused ultrasound waves deep in the brain with no incision was considered impossible.

I once heard Insightec’s founder Kobi Vortman say that Insightec makes the impossible possible.

The Exablate Neuro device is a feat of technological excellence with advanced hardware that produces ultrasound powerful enough to pass through the skull and intelligent software that corrects for individual skull shape and density. The ultrasound waves converge to heat and destroy a tiny spot deep in the brain with many patients showing immediate improvement in their hand tremor.

The first clinical trials using focused ultrasound in the brain began in 2005 with the aim to prove the safety of the Exablate Neuro. A preliminary feasibility study was then conducted and the results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2013. Next, a randomized pivotal study was initiated for the treatment of medication-refractory essential tremor. In July 2016, the Exablate Neuro received FDA approval and in August, the results of the pivotal study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Exablate Neuro is the first focused ultrasound device approved by the FDA to treat medication refractory essential tremor. Today, essential tremor patients are routinely being treated with focused ultrasound at 35 medical centers around the world.

Thank you to Galien Foundation for the recognition that Insightec is making the impossible possible by redefining brain surgery with no incisions.