8MAR2012: Valley View, OH – Great Lakes NeuroTechnologies announced today that they have received allowance of claims from the U.S. Patent Office for an application covering their Movement Disorder Monitoring System and Method for quantitative assessment of motor symptoms associated with movement disorders. The claims cover a system and method of wireless patient-worn motion sensors that assess tremor, bradykinesia, rigidity, and dyskinesias associated with diseases like Parkinson’s and essential tremor. This innovative medical technology has applications for both in-clinic and home-based patient care, optimizing programming for deep brain stimulation, and providing quantitative endpoints to determine efficacy of clinical trials. When used in telemedicine applications, physicians utilize a web interface to track symptom responses and fluctuations.
To address the growing market need for standardized and ambulatory assessment of movement disorders, Great Lakes NeuroTechnologies has been committed to the commercialization of the Kinesia and Kinesia HomeView medical technology platforms since 2003. “The allowance of our patent claims continues a successful commercialization path for our Parkinson’s assessment systems intended to help physicians maximize therapeutic benefits and ultimately improve patient quality of life.” says Joseph P. Giuffrida, PhD, President. “Great Lakes NeuroTechnologies is uniquely positioned in the movement disorders market as a world leader in medical device development and manufacture of technologies to standardize, automate, and remotely capture patient assessments. This heightened intellectual property position builds on and protects our previous commercialization efforts and continued market growth.” Dr. Giuffrida also thanked the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the National Institute on Aging for their continued support of these technologies.
The company is committed to building its intellectual property portfolio which will cover new applications arising from several on-going clinical studies. “We have a broad range of patent applications in the pipeline and expect this to be the first of many to cover our innovative product base of movement disorder technologies”, says Brian Kolkowski, PhD, Executive Vice President and General Counsel. “In addition, this patent represents a first step as we continue with international filings to protect our technology portfolio and support our growth into international markets”.
About Great Lakes NeuroTechnologies
Great Lakes NeuroTechnologies is committed to pioneering innovative biomedical technologies to serve research, education, and medical communities, improving access to medical technology for diverse populations and positively impacting quality of life for people worldwide.
Media Contact
Amelia Earhart, Marketing Manager – 216-446-2413 – aaearhart@GLNeuroTech.com