Cochlear Limited

Cochlear Limited

Type	Public
Traded as	ASX: COH
Industry	Biotechnology
Founded	1981
Headquarters	Sydney, Australia
Key people	Dr Chris Roberts (CEO) Rick Holliday-Smith (Chairman)
Products	Cochlear implants
Revenue	A$752 million (2013) [1]
Net income	A$136 million (2013) [1]
Employees	2,700 in 25 countries (2013)[1]
Website	www.cochlear.com

Cochlear (ASX: COH) is a global biotechnology company that designs, manufactures and supplies the Nucleus cochlear implant, the Hybrid electro-acoustic implant and the Baha bone conduction implant.^[2]

Based in Sydney, Cochlear was formed in 1981 with finance from the Australian government to commercialise the implants pioneered by Dr Graeme Clark.^[3][4] Today, the company holds over two-thirds of the worldwide hearing implant market,^[5][6] with more than 250,000 people receiving one of Cochlear's implants since 1982.^[2]

Cochlear was named Australia's most innovative company in 2002 and 2003,^[7] and one of the world's most innovative companies by Forbes in 2011.^[8]

Products

Cochlear produces three implants for different medical situations.

Nucleus is a system combining an electrical simulation device that is surgically implanted behind a patient's ear, a processor that captures sounds, and an electrode array that relays the sounds to the brain.^[2][9] It is a direct descendant of the original cochlear implants, also known as Nucleus, developed by Dr Graeme Clark in Melbourne during the 1970s.^[3] Nucleus was the first cochlear implant to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.^[10] The system is upgradable, for example by installing a new sound processor, without surgery.^[2] Cochlear's latest processor, Nucleus 6, was launched in 2013 after six years of development.^[11] In 2013, the Nucleus implant recorded 99% reliability over the last 8 years, more than any similar product.^[12]

Hybrid is an electro-acoustic system combining a cochlear implant with an acoustic hearing aid, suitable for patients who have residual hearing at low frequencies.^[13] The implant of the Hybrid system is a smaller variant of Nucleus, with an electrode that relays only high frequency sounds,^[13] while the acoustic component amplifies low frequency sounds and transmits them to the brain through the ordinary nerve pathway.^[2] Hybrid was launched in 2008 and won Australian Engineering Excellence and International Design Awards in 2009.^[13]

Baha (derived from bone anchored hearing aid) is a bone conduction system involving a small titanium implant that is ossointegrated with the bone behind a patient's ear.^[2] A sound processor captures sounds, which is passed to the implant and directly transferred to the inner ear through the skull.^[2][14] Baha was originally produced by Swedish biotechnology group Entific Medical Systems before that company was acquired by Cochlear in 2005.^[15]

Corporate Affairs

Cochlear manufactures principally in Sweden and Australia, including at a purpose-built facility at Macquarie University in Sydney.^[16][17] The company's products are supplied to over 100 countries internationally, with annual sales of $297 million in the Americas, $285 million in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and $123 million in the Asia-Pacific as of 2012.^[2] Cochlear spent $119.3 million on research and development in 2012.^[2]

In 2011, reports arose of Nucleus model CI500 implants shutting down, although less than 1% of devices were affected and the failures posed no health risks.^[18][19] Cochlear funded a complete recall of the model, with an older version of the Nucleus implant being available as a replacement.^[18][19] The company spent $101.3 million on the recall.^[20]

References