A year of challenges and triumphs

While there are many of us that are simply wishing they could cross off the past year, here at Insightec we want to take a moment to acknowledge both the challenges as well as the triumphs our community and our company have achieved in 2020.

In March and April this year, hospitals suspended elective surgeries, including focused ultrasound for ET, and then over the summer, there was an explosion of treatments around the country as sites worked to ‘catch up’ on the patient demand. This year, Penn Medicine and Brigham & Women’s reached their 100^th patient treated. We saw the first husband and wife treated on the same day, for Essential Tremor and Tremor-dominant Parkinson’s Disease at Kiel in Germany. Severance Hospital in Seoul reached a milestone of 200+ treatments (including research procedures).

While the year has been difficult, we want to celebrate our teams that have been working for months and years to reach key milestones and continue to transform patient care. Let’s take a look at a few…

2020 started with a first – InSightec received approval from the Japanese Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare (MHLW) for Exablate Neuro pallidotomy to treat advanced Parkinson’s Disease patients suffering from mobility, rigidity, or dyskinesia symptoms.

In March, Red de Salud UC CHRISTUS became the first medical center in South America to join the Incisionless Neurosurgery community.

In April, we launched Workplace within the organization to empower internal communication in response to our rapid growth to over 300 geographically dispersed and culturally diverse employees – working from offices in the USA, Israel, Japan and China as well as remotely.

In July, InSightec achieved another first: Medicare coverage in all 50 states in the US for Focused Ultrasound to treat Essential Tremor.

In September, the first national reimbursement in the world to cover Focused Ultrasound to treat Parkinson’s Disease was announced in Japan.

In October, our CEO, Maurice R. Ferré, M.D., was recognized as Entrepreneur of the Year 2020 Florida for his leadership.

In November, National Health Service (NHS) England approved funding for MR-guided Focused Ultrasound for the treatment of medication-refractory Essential Tremor patients from April 2021. Exablate Neuro received market approval by the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency, ANVISA (Agencia Nacional de Vigilancia Sanitaria).

Indeed, there have been many challenges during the pandemic, and the loss of life has been devastating. We are thankful that our employees and their family members are healthy. As our global offices closed and opened and closed again, our teams adjusted, setting up workspaces at home and working with one another across virtual platforms. Today, we remain steadfast in our commitment to keep our people and their families safe while helping patients gain access to focused ultrasound technology.

In the face of many unknowns, we remain determined to continue listening to our people and communities – to both the stories of struggles and those of hope.

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