SensArs coordinates a €3 million grant to test its bionic prosthetics

Founded in 2014 by three researchers of EPFL, Francesco Petrini, Stanisa Raspopovic and Silvestro Micera who led the first implant of nerve electrodes in amputees in Europe, SensArs is developing SenSy, a neuroprosthetic system designed to improve the lives of amputees and people with damages to the peripheral nerves. 

To this day, lower limb amputees use prostheses that do not restore sensory feedback during movement, which increases the risk of falls, reduces amputee's confidence in the use of their prosthesis. Overusing the healthy leg results in increased fatigue and reduced mobility not to mention, patients usually suffer from phantom limb pain.

Addressing these challenges, SensArs developed a bionic prosthesis that has the ability to restore touch and movement sensations from the prosthesis of leg amputees. This is achieved by stimulating the amputee’s sciatic nerve through tiny implanted electrodes. Consequently, the user will receive sensory feedback from the prosthesis as from a real leg, hence improving their movement. So far, three amputees have tested its technology. Upon success, SenArs’s solution will benefit more than four million amputees in the US and Europe.

A €3 million EU grant confirmed
To further develop the solution, SensArs, as the project coordinator together with Ossur, the second-largest prosthesis manufacturer worldwide, Gemelli Policlinic of Rome and Charité of Berlin and two clinical centers have received a €3 million grant from the European Commission as part of the GoSafe project. During the project, SensArs will finalize its product Ossur will provide its expertise in prosthetics to ensure that the product matches the requirements of the final users. The product will then enter preclinical and clinical validation tests with patients in two clinical centers in Germany and Italy. Through the project, SensArs also aims to obtain the CE mark for its neuroprosthesis.

The GoSafe neuroprosthesis would be a novel therapy for phantom pain and would enable the National Health Systems to save up to €330’000 per amputee, connected to a sedentary lifestyle following prosthesis abandonment. The sensory feedback system will represent a new product in the prosthetics market (valued €1.4 billion in 2016), allowing its further expansion

Francesco Petrini, Co-founder and CEO of SensArs Neuroprosthetics, says: “After the encouraging results of the pilot trial with our first prototype, now the GoSafe project will allow us to make the technology fully implantable and portable for a clinical trial that will finally show the complete safety of technology and benefits for the patients.”

(Press release/ran)