Around 65 million people in the world suffer from epilepsy and experience seizures at any given point with little to no warning. Currently, there is no cure for uncontrollable seizures, which poses a significant danger to people living with epilepsy. They cannot predict and protect themselves effectively when the subsequent seizure is bound to happen. Meet David Blánquez Caurel from mjn-neuro and learn how he and his team are tackling this pain-point to ease the lives of people living with epileptic seizures.
How was mjn-neuro born?
mjn-neuro is a personal project. I have a daughter, Marina, who has been living with epilepsy for the last 17 years. Several years ago, we decided to create something to help Marina and other people living with epilepsy. We wanted to build some kind of device solution that could help them predict when they will have a seizure. Having a seizure is dangerous as you could fall and hit your head against something or worse. Our objective is to prevent such accidents and injuries from taking place.
Can you tell us more about the product and its development process?
It was 2009, and we wanted first to make an electronic nose device, but then we could not make such a device. Because of this, we started to read extensively about EGG and other techniques that could provide a solution for people who have epilepsy.
In 2014, we decided to create an earpiece solution mjn-SERAS that could actually record the brain’s electrical activity through the ear canal, which then gets processed by artificial intelligence algorithms. By this, we can send an alert, both acoustic and visual, when the level of risk of suffering an epileptic seizure is high, both to the user and to trusted persons.
We want to continually improve the quality of life for everybody, not only the patient, but also to assist caregivers, doctors, and families of epileptic patients. Because of this, we have an app, Social-SERAS, which is free, and is used for managing and scheduling epileptic seizures, informing people when a person is affected by an epileptic seizure.
What makes your product different from other solutions for epilepsy that are out there?
Many devices detect epileptic seizures, but the problem with detection is that the seizure needs to have already started 5-10 seconds approximately. We do not focus on detecting; instead, our solution concentrates on predicting seizures by alarming the patient before the onset of a seizure to move to a safe place, alarm the caretaker or undergo some protocol that prevents accidents or injuries.
It is a very clear distinction between detection and prediction. Our vision for us is to represent the patient. Usually, the vision is from the technical side or the clinical side. Still, in our company, we prioritise the patient’s side by ensuring that the solution is complete for the patient – alerting the patient and their caregivers before the seizure takes place.
Your company emphasises not only the technical side but also the social side. Can you elaborate on that as well?
Yes, we are a social impact company since 2017 because we are working with people with epilepsy, and this is embedded in the company’s DNA. We also want to invest 10% of our revenues in research and development to develop further projects for epilepsy and other illnesses. Another commitment is that we invest 5% in social action that helps schools and associations understand epilepsy. Essentially, assisting people in having a better quality of life.
Epilepsy is an important topic, does your work include awareness raising regarding this issue?
Before COVID-19, I used to travel and explain to people what epilepsy means: What is happening to these people? Why can these people not go to work all day? Why are they not sleeping correctly at night? And if they are children, what can happen in the school with these children? Once they know more about epilepsy, then we can educate how they can accommodate people with epilepsy. It is very important that there is some kind of protocol or recommendation to follow when somebody is undergoing a seizure, whether that is in schools or any other place.
What is your approach to research?
We are working with several consortiums, universities and research centres. It is a very collaborative approach, and we need to talk to different people because we require other perspectives. For example, now we have been approved for another project in Europe. We have to conduct clinical trials in three countries – Germany, United Kingdom, and Spain, involving different physicians and companies like Medtronic. Because of this, we are developing several consortiums to develop various projects and have other topics covered.
Can your technology extend its scope to include other illnesses?
We have been talking to doctors about using our technology for different diseases like Parkinson and Alzheimer. Last year, we started a project with our consortium in Spain. We have begun to develop a device that uses an algorithm to predict Alzheimer disease 12 to 18 months before the first symptoms come. Such a prediction is beneficial to doctors and their patients because they can administer some treatment with drugs or no drugs or offer alternative options for those patients already suffering from cognitive impairment.
Currently, in our team, we have a division for Alzheimer. They are developing this project for less than a year and applying for grants from the European Union or the Spanish government as we want to drive progress in this area – develop better algorithms to predict and detect Alzheimer’s disease from asymptotic people. The next step will be to help people who are susceptible to Parkinson. This is our commitment that through our research and development of our product, we can widen the scope not only for epileptic patients but also for other patients with Alzheimer and Parkinson.
Wow, that already sounds very impressive. Though I wonder about your journey as it must not have been easy, what were your main challenges?
The implementation has been a very long and hard process. One of the demanding tasks was to develop a new medical device, followed by the health regulation of medical devices. For example, due to the regulations for medical devices, we have had a delay in market access for one and half years. One needs to develop clinical trials, technical documents and design a laboratory, and all of these are very long and hard tasks.
In 2020, we received a CE Marking for Europe, a very prestigious certificate that is very hard to get for a small company. This will help us with market access. Now we are developing a digital commercial strategy by e-commerce, which has its challenges too. For this, we are talking to patients, doctors, medical centres and getting their recommendations to show that the product is existing in the market. For me, the regulatory landscape is the most difficult. But now that we are compliant with the regulations, we can focus more on the commercial aspect. Now we are commercialising in Spain and have an agreement with the distributors in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and also quite recently Germany has also entered our talks.
What kind of advice would you give founders entering the health tech industry?
If you have a project, you have to believe in it and be very resilient. Taking my example, a medical device project is a highly complex thing to make in this stressful market. Everything is complicated, and you have to be very rational and put in many hours of work. In the last few years, I’ve mainly dedicated myself to the project. I have no free time, not doing a sport, or not having other hobbies – my hobby now is the company. It is therefore very important to have an outstanding team and not do things on your own. I am really lucky and proud of everything we have been doing, as, over the years, we have expanded our team. We have technicians, engineers and a laboratory to develop different projects, which will help us with commercialisation and market accessibility in various countries.
Anything else you would like to add?
I would like to emphasise further that we are a social company with the mission to help people suffering from epilepsy – the support is needed for us, for myself and my daughter and for all those other fathers and many other people that require help. Because we know the problem of epileptic seizures, we want to tackle the issue by developing solutions for the sake of the patient.