Despite clear unmet patient need and vast economic impact, the complex biology of neurologic and psychiatric disease have stymied past efforts into quantum leaps for brain health. Last fall, the General Catalyst Precision Neuroscience Summit in Boston brought together world-leaders across industry and clinical medicine to catalyze a renaissance in brain and behavioral health into unprecedented patient impact. As 2022 came to a close, I took the opportunity to reflect back upon its impact, and together, I believe we will achieve those goals.
It’s hard to put into words the shared sense of determination and optimism displayed by the Summit attendees. Dr. Greg Licholai may have best captured the atmosphere in his Forbes article describing the event, noting that the scientists and researchers at the summit “predicted a renaissance in research and development.”
Optimism among neuroscience researchers and investors is high these days for good reason. Breakthroughs in neurodiagnostics and digital biomarkers are providing unprecedented insights into brain activity. This data will continue to pave the way for novel therapies and treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, depression, migraine and other neurological conditions. We are proud that Beacon Biosignals is on the leading edge of this golden age in neuroscience research with our EEG neurobiomarker platform.
“We see significant promise in the emerging era of precision neuroscience. A critical mass is fusing new platforms for data collection, new biomarker modalities, and new computational methods which will render disorders of the brain more tractable than ever before.” - Chris Chatham PhD, Global Head of Innovation for Neuroscience, Genentech
“We see significant promise in the emerging era of precision neuroscience,” Dr. Chris Chatham, Global Head of Innovation for Neuroscience at biotech pioneer Genentech, said in his summit keynote address. “A critical mass is fusing new platforms for data collection, new biomarker modalities, and new computational methods which will render disorders of the brain more tractable than ever before.” The FDA’s approval of Eisai’s lecanemab last week underscores we have indeed entered this new era for effective precision neuroscience medicines.
One of the main recurring themes at the summit was the urgent need to hasten the development of drugs for neurological conditions across the board. Biopharma and biotech companies must accelerate the design and execution of clinical trials for central nervous system (CNS) therapeutics while enrolling diverse patient populations and more accurately measuring underlying disease burden. At-home clinical trial elements emerged well-suited to address these aims, especially by harnessing at-home brain monitoring methods (such as sleep EEG) to better define disease subtypes and measure disease progression.
There also was a consensus at the Summit that researchers must find a way to better define neurological and psychiatric disorders. These disorders are complex, heterogenous, and rely on subjective measures of disease. They key to capturing this will be the aggregation of enormous datasets. In this vein, the commitment to cooperation and data sharing in the pursuit of new therapies was palpable at the conference. As a community, we are just learning how to aggregate multimodal datasets centered around neurophysiology. This ambitious endeavor will require coordination with health systems, biopharma partners, and patient foundations, as we’re doing at Beacon, to build the first real-world datasets incorporating measures of brain function. From this data, machine learning unlocks new insights into disease subtypes and establishes treatment-responsive biomarkers for neurologic and psychiatric disease. At Beacon, we believe the next decade will be rich with AI-guided biomarkers and endpoints not previously measurable by human experts, such as epileptiform spike burden.
The development of next-generation precision therapeutics for the brain will require time and effort, despite the progress made in machine learning. A sustained focus on stratifying neurological and psychiatric disorders through molecular profiling and quantitative biomarker studies, as we do at Beacon, will lead to more efficient clinical trials with historically high probabilities of success in neurology and psychiatry.
Our hope at Beacon Biosignals for 2030 is that our technology will be able to capture neurophysiological data on any patient with a CNS condition and precisely measure the effects of targeted therapies on brain function. While each of the organizations in attendance have different paths to get there, our collective destination and goal remains the same – to improve the diagnosis and treatment of neurological and psychiatric diseases and advance precision medicine for brain health.
