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Bioelectronic medicines: a research roadmap

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 13, pages 399–400 (2014)Cite this article

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Realizing the vision of a new class of medicines based on modulating the electrical signalling patterns of the peripheral nervous system needs a firm research foundation. Here, an interdisciplinary community puts forward a research roadmap for the next 5 years.

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Acknowledgements

The views and opinions contained in this article are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official views or policies, either expressed or implied, of the US National Institutes of Health. Douglas Weber, Ph.D., is a Program Manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technologies Office (BTO). DARPA has approved this article for public release, and distribution is unlimited. The views, opinions, and/or findings contained in this article/presentation are those of the author(s)/presenter(s) and should not be interpreted as representing the official views or policies, either expressed or implied, of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or the US Department of Defense.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bioelectronics R&D, GlaxoSmithKline, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 2NY, UK

    Karen Birmingham & Kristoffer Famm

  2. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 91125, California, USA

    Viviana Gradinaru

  3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 02139, Massachusetts, USA

    Polina Anikeeva

  4. Duke University, Durham, 27708-0281, North Carolina, USA

    Warren M. Grill

  5. Huntington Medical Research Institutes, Pasadena, 91105, California, USA

    Victor Pikov

  6. The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, 02139, Massachusetts, USA

    Bryan McLaughlin

  7. Johns Hopkins Center for Neurogastroenterology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Ross 958, Baltimore, 21205, Maryland, USA

    Pankaj Pasricha

  8. Biological Technology Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, 22203, Virginia, USA

    Douglas Weber

  9. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, North Bethesda, 20852, Maryland, USA

    Kip Ludwig

Authors
  1. Karen Birmingham
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  2. Viviana Gradinaru
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  3. Polina Anikeeva
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  4. Warren M. Grill
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  5. Victor Pikov
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  6. Bryan McLaughlin
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  7. Pankaj Pasricha
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  8. Douglas Weber
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  9. Kip Ludwig
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  10. Kristoffer Famm
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kristoffer Famm.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

K.B. and K.F. are presently employees of GlaxoSmithKline, as indicated in the affiliations.

V.G. is a co-founder of Circuit Therapeutics and holds related intellectual property and stock (less than 5%). At the time of writing, V.G. receives no research funding, royalties, or consultant fees from any for-profit organization.

P.A. is sponsored by Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.

W.M.G. receives funding through GlaxoSmithKline's Bioelectronics R&D programme and research support from Medtronic, Stryker and Ethicon. He holds equity positions in NDI Medical, SPR Therapeutics and Deep Brain Innovations, and is a paid consultant for Autonomic Technologies, Circuit Therapeutics, NeuroAccess Technologies, NeuroTronik, NDI Medical, SetPoint Medical and St. Jude Medical.

V.P. is a paid Consultant to GlaxoSmithKline, Bioelectronics R&D and receives funding through GlaxoSmithKline's Bioelectronics R&D programme.

B.M. is a paid consultant to GlaxoSmithKline.

P.P. receives funding through GlaxoSmithKline's Bioelectronics R&D programme and is a co-founder of Enterowave, Enterx, gIQ. He has several patents in the field of electrical stimulation in various stages of being licensed to different companies.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information S1 (box)

Bioelectronic medicines: the detailed research roadmap (PDF 305 kb)

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FURTHER INFORMATION

Bioelectronics R&D — Million Dollar Innovation Challenge (GlaxoSmithKline)

NIH BRAIN Working Group (interim report; 16 Sep 2013)

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Birmingham, K., Gradinaru, V., Anikeeva, P. et al. Bioelectronic medicines: a research roadmap. Nat Rev Drug Discov 13, 399–400 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd4351

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