Thread by @paraschopra

Studied history of three different brain implants for medical uses (Neuropace, Second Sight, and Stentrode).

The average time from conception to selling the product is 16 years!

Half of this time is R&D and the other half FDA-required clinical trials.

Even after FDA approval, the use of these devices is legally restricted by FDA to people suffering from extreme cases of diseases.

For example, the company that makes this artificial retina (Second Sight) estimated their approved market to be (just) 1500 people in the US.

With 16 years to launch and target market of 1500 people, no wonder this artificial retina costed $150,000.

Unfortunately, they stopped developing this because it wasn't financially attractive.

With such an extensive regulatory process and approval for such narrow patient populations, developing next-gen therapies or medical devices for any startup is impossible.

Forget about 16 years of patience for entrepreneurs, where will they get investors for this entire journey?

Also, it's interesting to see even Neuralink following very similar timelines.

They launched in 2016 and they might start the first clinical trial only in 2022 or 23, which is 6-7 years from inception.

A proper trial will take them 6-8 more years.

So they'll also take ~15 years from launch to the first product in the market.

Similar technology (BrainGate2) has been in clinical trials since 2009 and they expect to finish their trials by 2026.

clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00…

For reference, here's what BrainGate was able to do 9 years ago (in 2012)

Way ahead of what Neuralink did with monkeys in 2021.