Epilepsy is a highly prevalent neurological disease effecting over 50 million people worldwide. Various novel forms of treatment approaches are being developed across a variety of industry sectors from pharmaceuticals, to bionic devices, through to brain monitoring systems. These approaches are providing significant opportunities for growth. With specific regard to bionic devices and brain monitoring systems a key problem in epilepsy is that of the detection, prediction and control of epileptic seizures.

This BioBreakfast on ‘Innovation in Epilepsy’ will feature a Q & A session with a panel of international experts in epileptic seizure detection, prediction and control who have significant experience working at the interface of industry and research. The panel will discuss current status of industry areas relating to epilepsy, new technology areas that are approaching the market, reimbursement, innovation in clinical trials, funding and investments, and will highlight industry, academic and clinical partnerships for R&D and commercialization of relevance to the field.

Martha J. Morrell, MD
Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Morrell became Chief Medical Officer of NeuroPace, Inc. in July 2004, as well as a Clinical Professor of Neurology at Stanford University. Before joining NeuroPace, she was the Caitlin Tynan Doyle Professor of Clinical Neurology at Columbia University and Director of the Columbia Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Previously she was on the faculty of the Stanford University School of Medicine where she served as Director of the Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Center. A graduate of Stanford Medical School, she completed residency training in Neurology at University of Pennsylvania, as well as fellowship training in EEG and epilepsy. Dr. Morrell’s clinical and research work has been directed to the care of people with epilepsy. She has more than 150 publications on epilepsy and has spoken extensively on epilepsy internationally. She has been a member of the Board of Directors of the American Epilepsy Society and a member and Chair of the Board of the Epilepsy Foundation. Service to other professional societies includes the American Neurological Association as a member of the Council and the American Academy of Neurology as Chair of the Epilepsy Section. She is an elected Ambassador for Epilepsy of the International League Against Epilepsy and received the American Epilepsy Society’s 2007 Service Award for outstanding leadership and service. She is incoming President of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics.

Prof. Philippe Ryvlin
Head of the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, CHUV, Lausanne, Switzerland. Director of the Epilepsy Institute IDEE, Lyon, France.

Philippe Ryvlin is Professor of Neurology and Chair of the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland, and Director of the Epilepsy Institute in Lyon, France. He also holds a position of affiliate professor in pre-surgical evaluation at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is the author or co-author of over 180 PubMed referenced papers on topics primarily related to epilepsy surgery, anti-epileptic treatments and sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP).

Professor Ryvlin is President of the European Epilepsy Monitoring Association, Co-Chair of the Epilepsy Advocacy Europe Joint Task Force of the International League Against Epilepsy and the International Bureau for Epilepsy, founder of the European Network for Epilepsy Research and coordinator of the European pilot network of reference centres in refractory epilepsy and epilepsy surgery recently granted by the European Union (E-PILEPSY).

Recently he was involved in a clinical trial involving the Vagal Nerve Stimulator developed by Cyberonics Corporation: “The long-term effect of vagus nerve stimulation on quality of life in patients with pharmacoresistant focal epilepsy: The PuLsE (OpenProspective Randomized Long-term Effectiveness) trial”.

Prof. Antonio Dourado
Full Professor at University of Coimbra, Portugal

Prof Dourado is an active teacher and researcher in informatics and biomedical engineering. He has been the Director and/or participant of several research projects in cooperation with Portuguese industries and in several international programs (EU FP6, FP7, Comett, Erasmus Mundus, ESF- European Science Foundation). Prof Dourado was recently coordinator of the European Union FP7 grant EPILEPSIAE (http://www.epilepsiae.eu/), which focused on developing a transportable alarming device for epilepsy patients that automatically records data, predicts epileptic seizures, and warns the patient. The prototype, called the Brainatic, was developed in partnership with the biomedical engineering company Micromed, S.P.A. (Italy). This project also involved a consortium of international members from the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra (Portugal), Hospitais de Universidade de Coimbra, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France), Albert Ludwigs Universität Freiburg (Germany) and Universitätsklinikum Freiburg.

Matt Godden (Event Moderator)
Strategic Director, Australian Healthcare Solutions

Matt has spent over 25 years in healthcare in Australia and Asia Pacific, with the past 20 years being focussed on the medical technology (medtech) sector. His last role was as Director of Medtronic Australasia’s Cardiovascular business. Matt honed his skill for driving accessibility of credible medical technology in the Asia Pacific region whilst working in a regional strategic market development role at Medtronic.

Matt founded Australian Healthcare Solutions after leaving the corporate sector in 2008 and has since provided strategic market development solutions to many multinational medtech companies and start-ups alike. Matt holds an MBA from Mt. Eliza Business School, a Bachelor of Education (La Trobe University) and a Diploma of Applied Science (RMIT).