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ElectroCore Aims To Bring Neurostimulation To The Masses, Beginning With Headache

Armed with financing from a syndicate including Merck’s Global Health Innovation Fund, electroCore is pressing ahead with pivotal trials in several headache indications, with other neural and immune conditions to follow. The company believes its noninvasive vagus nerve stimulator that is self-administered by the patient could potentially upturn treatment paradigms.

Renewed interest in vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) as a safe and effective therapeutic modality is propelling N.J.-based electroCore LLC to the front of a promising field. Although the technology has been around for decades as an implanted device, electroCore is one of the few competitors with a noninvasive VNS device (nVNS) that delivers a mild electrical signal to the cervical branch of the vagus nerve and can be self-administered by the patient. The company appears to be well capitalized and is conducting four clinical trials for various indications in both cluster and migraine headaches. It expects to launch its first product, gammaCore, in the U.S. during the next two years.

This year has seen the pharmaceutical industry’s cautious embrace of neurostimulation, and VNS in particular, for a wide spectrum of...

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