Onward Medical has received a grant from the European Innovation Council (EIC) to study its investigational ARC-BCI therapy to restore upper limb movement following subcortical stroke.

This marks the third EIC grant supporting development of ARC-BCI therapy to address movement challenges, and the first that targets stroke. The first two grants were focused on spinal cord injury (SCI).

Onward Medical’s research and technology partners in the grant consortium include Commissariat à L’énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (CEA) and Dessintey of France, Department of Clinical Sciences, KI DS, Karolinska Institutet, of Sweden, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), and Centre Hospitalie Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV) of Switzerland.

The total anticipated funding from this grant and companion funding from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation (SERI) is €6 million with Onward receiving nearly €2 million.

The company said it plans to use the funding to build the capability to program and simultaneously control two investigational ARC-IM IPGs (implanted neurostimulators), and to further develop its ARC-IM Lead for the cervical spinal cord, the spinal cord area responsible for upper extremity function.

To date, three trial participants have been implanted with Onward’s ARC-BCI therapy.

“While helping people with spinal cord injury remains our North Star, this grant underscores the potential for our breakthrough therapies to impact people with other movement disabilities, such as stroke,” said Dave Marver, CEO of Onward Medical. “The funding supports next steps in developing what may be the first-ever therapy to restore thought-driven hand and arm function after stroke.”

More about Onward Medical’s ARC-BCI

The ARC-BCI system pairs the WIMAGINE BCI (brain-computer interface) with investigational ARC-IM therapy (targeted implanted spinal cord stimulation) to create a “DigitalBridge,” facilitating communication between the brain and the body with a wireless BCI to restore thought-driven movement after paralysis.

ARC-BCI uses AI to decode brain signals and translate their intention into thought-driven movement. The WIMAGINE BCI has seven years of human safety data, and ARC-IM Therapy has now been applied in over 30 study participants. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) awarded Breakthrough Device Designation to the ARC-BCI System in early 2024, one of ten such designations awarded to Onward.