Brainsway

Brainsway Ltd.

Type	Public
Traded as	TASE: BRIN
Industry	Medical technology
Founded	2003 (2003)
Founder(s)	Uzi Sofer (CEO) Avner Hagai (President) David Zacut (Chairman)
Headquarters	Jerusalem, Israel
Key people	Avraham Zangen Yiftach Roth
Products	Deep TMS System
Subsidiaries	Brainsway Inc.
Website	brainsway.com

Brainsway (Hebrew: בריינסוויי‎) is an Israeli company engaged in the development of a medical device that uses H-coil for deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (Deep TMS) as a noninvasive treatment for depression, schizophrenia, and other neurological disorders, depending on licensing in different countries. The company was founded in 2003 and is based in Jerusalem, Israel.

Background

Early years of TMS

TMS technology, invented during the 1980s as a diagnostic tool, operates by sending an electric current through a coil, whereby an intense magnetic field is generated. When encompassing the brain, the field penetrates the cranium and stimulates nerve cells in a particular area of the brain. During the 1990s, Israeli scientists began speculating as to the potential psychiatric applications of TMS after accounts emerged of patients reporting mood improvement following exposure to TMS. Researchers from Beer Sheva, Haifa and Tel HaShomer pioneered studies relating to TMS and treatment of depression, mania and posttraumatic stress disorder.

Early TMS devices, employing circular and figure-8 coils, were limited by the extent to which they could penetrate beyond the cerebral cortex: elevating the intensity of the magnetic field increased the depth of penetration but brought with it a higher risk of negative side effects, such as pain. Mark S. George of the Medical University of South Carolina likened the search for a device that could stimulate the deeper regions of the brain and still be safe for use to the quest for the Holy Grail.^[1][2]

H-coil technology

In the late 1990s, Avraham Zangen, an Israeli scientist and Bar-Ilan University alumnus, was performing postdoctoral research on the brain's reward system at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).^[3] Seeking to transcend the shortcomings of TMS coil technologies in use at the time, which could only penetrate safely to a depth of 1.5 centimeters, Zangen began conceiving of a way to reach areas deep in the brain by activating the magnetic field at several points and having them target the same area of the brain. At the same time that the field being directed at the targeted area would undergo an effect similar to constructive interference on account of emanating from more than one point, the areas not being targeted could be made to experience a reduced-intensity field on account of the opposite effect, similar to destructive interference.^[1]

In order to realize his vision, Zangen teamed up with brother-in-law Yiftach Roth, a physicist from Rechelim, and the two began working on a prototype.^[4][5] The result of their research, the H-coil, was capable of safely penetrating an unprecedented 8 centimeters into the brain and opened up the possibility of treating such deep-brain disorders as depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, and addiction. The H-coil was patented by the NIH in 2002, and the procedure whereby the H-coil was applied to TMS became known as Deep TMS.^[3][6][7]

Corporate history

Brainsway was founded in 2003 by Uzi Sofer and Avner Hagai, together with David Zacut. The research serving as the company's technological platform is the H-coil Deep TMS system patented through the U.S. National Institutes of Health in 2002. The patent is exclusively licensed to Brainsway.^[8][9][10]

Brainsway conducted its first clinical Deep TMS trials at Tel Aviv University in 2005.^[3] It subsequently obtained European Union CE mark approval to treat major depressive disorder (2008), manic depression (2009), schizophrenia (2010), and posttraumatic stress disorder (2011).^[11] In January 2013, Brainsway won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and from Health Canada to market its Deep TMS device in the United States and in Canada as a treatment for depression in cases where patients failed to make a recovery following drug treatment.^[12][13]

In early 2007 Brainsway executed an initial public offering on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, raising ₪33 million for a market cap of ₪110 million.^[14] During the year 2010 Brainsway announced plans to list shares of the company's stock on the Nasdaq exchange.^[15] In May 2011 the company disclosed the terms of its planned IPO.^[16] In June it withdrew its IPO proposal.^[17] After winning USFDA approval for its Deep TMS device in early 2013 Brainsway's market cap surpassed ₪500 million, and in early February its market cap climbed to ₪900 million.^[12][18] Brainsway competes with Cyberonics Inc. (NASDAQ: CYBX) for market share.^[19][20]

People

Abraham Zangen

Abraham Zangen – nicknamed "Boomy" – completed an undergraduate degree in pharmacology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1991. He subsequently earned an M.Sc. in biochemical pharmacology and a Ph.D. in psychopharmacology from Bar-Ilan University. Between 1999 and 2003 Zangen conducted postdoctoral research at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. In 2003 he was installed as a senior scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science's Department of Neurobiology. As of 2005, Zangen lives in Jerusalem with his wife Rachel and their four children.^[10]

Yiftach Roth

Yiftach Roth was raised in Herzliya. After serving in the Israel Defense Forces' Artillery Corps, he went on to study physics at Tel Aviv University. In November 2010, as Roth was on his way home to Rechelim from Jerusalem, Arabs stoned his car and he suffered a serious head injury resulting in a fractured jaw and the loss of his left eye. Following his recovery, Roth told B'Sheva, "You could say the only anger I feel is toward those terrorists who planned the attack in order to murder. Their goal was clear, and it was to murder Jews. They chose the exact time and place explicitly in order to kill. A rock is a weapon by all accounts, make no mistake about it. A rock can kill, and I certainly came close."^[21][22][23]

See also

• List of companies of Israel
• List of Israeli inventions and discoveries
• Neuroscience
• Science and technology in Israel

References

Further reading

• Hallett, Mark (19 July 2007). "Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: A Primer". Neuron (Cell Press) 55 (2): 187–199. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2007.06.026. Retrieved 11 January 2013. 
• Roth, Yiftach; Zangen, Abraham (2012). "Basic Principles and Methodological Aspects of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation". In Miniussi, Carlo; Paulus, Walter; Rossini, Paolo M. Transcranial Brain Stimulation. CRC Press. ISBN 978-1-43-987570-4.  Cite uses deprecated parameters (help)