What You Should Know:
– Butterfly Network, a digital health provider of chip-powered handheld ultrasound technology, and Forest Neurotech, a tech research company has signed a $20M five-year agreement to develop a first-of-its-kind, minimally invasive implantable for imaging and stimulating the brain with ultrasound, powered by Butterfly’s chip technology.
– Forest Neurotech is backed by Convergent Research, the Schmidt Futures Network, and Caltech, and the collaboration is part of Butterfly’s newly launched Butterfly Garden – a marketplace that facilitates partnerships with hardware and software developers seeking to build new technologies using Butterfly’s proprietary Ultrasound-on-Chip technology.
Partnership Details
The agreement includes $20MM to be paid to Butterfly for annual licensing, chip purchases, services and milestone payments, of which $3.5MM was received on signing. Additional revenue is anticipated for every unit sold upon commercialization. Forest Neurotech is the latest Focused Research Organization to be created as part of Convergent Research, an incubator for ambitious scientific non-profits and member of the Schmidt Futures Network. Convergent Research recently announced $50M in new philanthropic support.
Real-Time Imaging of Entire Brain
Roughly the diameter of a quarter, the device will create real-time imaging of the entire brain, offering unprecedented insights into complex and hard-to-treat neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, OCD and depression, among many others. Importantly, this technology is less invasive than traditional approaches to brain imaging and stimulation.
“Forest Neurotech is an exemplary partner that validates the vision behind Butterfly Garden. We opened our imaging platform for co-development to encourage and expedite innovation that captures the full potential of Butterfly’s disruptive chip technology through new applications and in adjacent markets. By bringing our chip into the neurotech implantables space, this partnership does exactly that,” said Joseph DeVivo, Butterfly Network’s President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman.
