Neuroscience company SyncThink has revealed new data indicating traction for its Eye-Sync platform. The system recently was identified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for potential future approval.
The brain analytics company revealed 2018 data usage milestones this week that it said reflect a “steep growth trajectory” for the platform. Eye-Sync is intended to aid in the rehabilitation of people after head trauma. Notably, SyncThink has built and currently maintains the world’s largest eye-tracking database, with more than 50,000 patient results.
In its first full year on the commercial market, SyncThink said it received wide adoption from healthcare organizations, professional sports teams (including the Golden State Warriors) and college athletics programs. It received Breakthrough Device Designation from the FDA last month for its objective assessments of concussions. That designation is distributed to certain companies with novel medical products for life-threatening or debilitating conditions and can open a path to FDA approval.
The company backed up its bullish statements with adoption numbers, saying that it had expanded its commercial presence in North America to 40 user locations, with more than 200 clinicians now using Eye-Sync to care for patients. In 2018, nearly 30,000 baseline assessments were performed, including more than 2,000 discrete injury assessments and more than 5,900 post-injury assessments and treatments.
“[Last year was] an exciting year for us—as we’ve proven our clinical utility we’ve dramatically grown the business and usage metrics”, said SyncThink CEO Laura Yecies, in a statement.
SyncThink widened the use of its product over the year from one centered on rapid visual assessments to a full spectrum of brain performance measurements that aim to detect ocular and vestibular impairments, as well as recovery tactics to aid in rehabilitation. The company is also expanding into sophisticated athletic training.
At the start of 2019, SyncThink inked at least one partnership that will help it expand beyond virtual reality and rehabilitation and into augmented reality and athletic training. With Magic Leap, SyncThink plans to use mixed reality and cognitive training to help sports team achieve heightened levels of improve performance.
SportTechie Takeaway
SyncThink’s growth comes amid a broader movement to detect traumatic brain injuries and rehabilitate people who have suffered from them. Companies and leagues have taken a range of actions to address the health and safety concerns that come from athlete collisions, and SyncThink has diversified itself by using eye-tracking technologies, mixed realities and analytics to discover irregularities in brain performance based on a person’s vision and reaction time.
The FDA designation was a big win for a company that has prized itself on scientific achievement. Watching to see how the company expands into athletic training will be very interesting. Athletes and their coaches continually hunt for ways to gain an edge in competition, and SyncThink promises to offer one.