"Jieti Medical" Secures 350 Million Yuan in Series B Financing, and Implantable Brain-Computer Interfaces in China Are Moving Towards Clinical Applications | 36Kr Exclusive
36Kr has learned that "Ladder Medical", an implantable brain-computer interface enterprise, has recently completed a Series B financing of 350 million yuan, jointly led by Qiming Venture Capital, OrbiMed, Lilly Asia Ventures and well-known industrial investment institutions. The angel round investor, Yuanlai Capital, continues to follow the investment, and Qifeng Capital serves as the financial advisor. It is understood that as of now, this is the highest financing amount in the domestic implantable brain-computer interface field.
This round of funds will be used to promote the clinical trial of brain-computer interface products, the research and development of a new generation of technologies, and the construction of a medical-grade MEMS production base, accelerating the clinical application and commercialization process of brain-computer interface technology.
Ladder Medical was established in August 2021, focusing on the research and development and application of minimally invasive implantable brain-computer interface technology, and is known for its ultra-flexible electrode and other technologies. 36Kr had in-depth reported the entrepreneurial information and technical capabilities of Ladder Medical in July 2022.
Currently, the high-throughput implantable brain-computer interface system developed by Ladder Medical has completed the medical device registration type test and is used to help paralyzed patients complete complex brain-controlled tasks.
In terms of clinical research, Ladder Medical has carried out more than 50 investigator-initiated clinical trials (IIT) related to brain-computer interfaces, and established a large-scale flexible electrode human single-cell data set. It plans to start a prospective clinical trial (FIM) for long-term implantation of invasive brain-computer interfaces in 2025 and promote large-scale clinical trials in 2026.
Zhao Zhengtuo, the founder of Ladder Medical, said that in the short term, Ladder Medical will focus on the development of the application of implantable brain-computer interfaces in medical scenarios, including language function reconstruction, artificial hearing, facial paralysis repair, and spinal cord injury repair. In the long term, the company is developing a new generation of brain-computer interface systems with thousands of channels, which will promote the improvement of human-computer interaction efficiency. "In the future, we look forward to jointly exploring an innovative path of intelligent collaboration with leading enterprises in the fields of large language models and embodied intelligent robots."
Implantable brain-computer interfaces are a systems engineering involving multiple interdisciplinary technologies such as ultra-flexible electrodes, micro-implant design, and minimally invasive implantation techniques.
The founding team of Ladder Medical once introduced to 36Kr that the research of brain-computer interfaces is an inverted pyramid structure. The bottom layer is the neural interface, which is also the primary technical bottleneck of brain-computer interfaces; the second layer is the full system development, which requires a system that can extract brain signals, perform external control through signals, and then transmit external information back to the brain. This is the only way for the application of brain-computer interfaces; the next is clinical accessibility to realize the clinical application and popularization of brain-computer interfaces; the top is the understanding of the brain by neuroscience. To what extent the brain is understood, it is possible to develop or use it to that extent, which is also the ceiling of human-computer interaction.
In the field of neural electrodes, Ladder Medical adopts an ultra-flexible electrode design, reducing the electrode size to the order of 1/100 of a hair strand through micro-nano processing technology. The size is about 1/5 of the electrode selected by Musk's Neuralink, significantly improving the electrode flexibility. It is understood that the bending stress of Ladder Medical's ultra-flexible electrode reaches the order of the force between cells and within cells, making it difficult for cells to "perceive" the presence of the surrounding neural electrodes, effectively reducing the invasiveness to the brain tissue, and forming a neural electrode interface with "no immune scar" to achieve stable recording and stimulation.
In terms of implant design, the implant size of Ladder Medical is about half that of Neuralink; this also creates conditions for the "minimally invasive" of the implant surgery to improve the clinical accessibility of the system. According to the introduction, the implant surgery that Ladder Medical cooperates with clinical institutions requires a 3-5 millimeter micro-hole in the skull. "It can be completed with the help of mature minimally invasive neurosurgical puncture technology, reducing surgical trauma and risk."
In terms of the mass production of medical-grade brain-computer interface electrodes, Ladder Medical has introduced a semiconductor micro-nano processing technology to break through the problem of large-scale production. It has built a 2,000-square-meter GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) production facility, including a 300-square-meter clean workshop and an independent quality inspection laboratory, and plans to put into operation a medical-grade brain-computer interface MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) production base in 2025.
In terms of policy support, Ladder Medical has been selected into the "Unveiling and Leading" project of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's 2023 Future Industry Innovation Task, and at the same time has obtained the special policy support for brain-computer interfaces in Shanghai in 2024.
Brain-computer interfaces are a multi-disciplinary and systematic project that requires talents in various fields. In addition to neuroscience professionals, in the integrated neural signal acquisition and regulation system, talents with semiconductor high-precision technology, consumer electronics, analog mixed integrated circuit design, and medical device research and development technology are needed; in addition to the research and development end, experienced teams are also needed in the control of registration and listing and the clinical market.
At this stage, Ladder Medical is recruiting top talents in the fields of neuroscience, microelectronics engineering, artificial intelligence and clinical medicine. At the same time, it is open to strategic cooperation with industrial chain partners to jointly meet the upcoming human-computer interaction revolution with the support of multiple resources such as technology, capital, and policies.
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