{"id":21165,"date":"2023-09-21T15:36:43","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T15:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microloannexus.com\/investing\/neuralink-human-trials-set-to-begin-as-elon-musk-starts-recruiting-for-candidates-can-you-invest-in-it\/"},"modified":"2023-09-21T15:36:44","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T15:36:44","slug":"neuralink-human-trials-set-to-begin-as-elon-musk-starts-recruiting-for-candidates-can-you-invest-in-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microloannexus.com\/?p=21165","title":{"rendered":"Neuralink Human Trials Set To Begin As Elon Musk Starts Recruiting For Candidates. Can You Invest In It?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<h2 class=\"subhead-embed color-accent bg-base font-accent font-size text-align\">Key takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Neuralink is looking for human candidates to test its brain chip implants<\/li>\n<li>The company received FDA approval for human trials in May<\/li>\n<li>Neuralink isn\u2019t publicly traded, but its latest funding round raised $280 million from the likes of Peter Thiel\u2019s fund<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Are the days of Terminator nearly upon us? Neuralink, Elon Musk\u2019s human brain chip implant company, has started recruitment for human clinical trials after the business received FDA approval earlier this year in a landmark decision to make brain implants a reality.<\/p>\n<p>The sci-fi-sounding company has some serious potential in the healthcare industry and marks a new frontier for the sector with brain implants, but there are still competitors out there for Neuralink to be worried about. In the meantime, though, the company\u2019s valuation has shot up.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s everything we know about the Neuralink human trials and what Elon Musk\u2019s company\u2019s future is looking like.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subhead-embed color-accent bg-base font-accent font-size text-align\">What is Neuralink?<\/h2>\n<p><fbs-ad position=\"inread\" progressive=\"\" ad-id=\"article-0-inread\" aria-hidden=\"true\" role=\"presentation\"><\/fbs-ad><\/p>\n<p>Neuralink is Elon Musk\u2019s brain chip implant company. As in, literally putting computer chips inside of human brains. Why? The goal is to help serious medical concerns like paralysis, blindness and neurogenerative disorders first. That\u2019s right &#8211; Neuralink aims to help people walk and see again. After that, the broader goal is to help widespread global issues like mental health and obesity.<\/p>\n<p>Should it be approved, there isn\u2019t a limit on what Musk has planned for the revolutionary technology. As for how it works, the brain-computer interfaces \u201care systems that decode intended movement signals from brain activity to control external devices such as computers,\u201d according to the Neuralink study brochure.<\/p>\n<p>Neuralink received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this year after initially being rejected in early 2022 over concerns about the brain-computer interfaces\u2019 lithium batteries and whether the implants can safely be removed without damaging brain tissue.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subhead-embed color-accent bg-base font-accent font-size text-align\">Who is Neuralink looking to recruit?<\/h2>\n<p>Fancy having a chip implant plugged into your brain? That could be the reality should Elon Musk\u2019s Neuralink trials go well. The company is officially looking for the first human to become what arguably is the first cyborg after receiving approval from the FDA and the hospital undertaking the medical procedure.<\/p>\n<p>Neuralink is looking for patients with quadriplegia due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to test out the experimental device, the company confirmed in a blog post.<\/p>\n<p>The PRIME study, which involves directly planting a wireless brain-computer interface into the test subject\u2019s brain, will take place over the next six years. The first 18 months of the study will be dedicated to at-home and clinical trials, with five years of follow-up appointments.<\/p>\n<p>As well as testing the technology itself, the trial will also assess the safety of the Neuralink implant, the surgical robot completing the procedure and the overall functionality of the brain-computer interface with its intended purpose: \u201cto grant people the ability to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The trial \u201crepresents an important step in our mission to create a generalized brain interface to restore autonomy to those with unmet medical needs\u201d, Neuralink said, but even if the study were successful, it would still take years for the chips to be ready for the masses.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subhead-embed color-accent bg-base font-accent font-size text-align\">Has there been any other development in the field?<\/h2>\n<p>Neuralink has one key competitor that beat Musk\u2019s project to the line with FDA approval. Synchron enrolled its first patient in a U.S. clinical trial last May, with the early feasibility study funded by the National Institutes of Health to evaluate the product&#8217;s safety. The trial is set to include six patients in total.<\/p>\n<p>Synchron\u2019s brain-machine interface works differently from Neuralink\u2019s in that the device travels to the brain through blood vessels once implanted, whereas Neuralink plans to insert the device directly into the patient\u2019s skull. The idea is that the \u2018Stentrode\u2019 then translates brain activity into everyday tasks like texting, emailing and online shopping, which could be a game changer for paralyzed individuals.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no denying Neuralink is the more prominent company: at the end of 2022, Synchron raised $75 million in its latest funding round, whereas Neuralink\u2019s latest funding round was nearly four times that. But it certainly beat Neuralink to the punch and is over a year ahead at this point. And Synchron has some pretty big backers behind it: Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos were among some of the investors for its latest funding round.<\/p>\n<p>That might be why rumors sprang up last year that Musk had approached Synchron about a potential investment in the company. The whispers were quickly shot down, though there\u2019s no saying it can\u2019t happen in the future.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subhead-embed color-accent bg-base font-accent font-size text-align\">The controversies around the company<\/h2>\n<p>Just because Neuralink received FDA approval doesn\u2019t mean the project hasn\u2019t come without criticism. Concerns around animal welfare have landed Neuralink in hot water several times in recent years, including a monkey death as part of testing in 2022 as part of an unsuccessful trial to get the animal to play Pong with the chip insert.<\/p>\n<p>In a Reuters article from December 2022, anonymous Neuralink employees accused the company of unnecessary animal suffering and deaths due to Musk\u2019s relentless push towards getting the project past FDA approval. The issues are apparently so bad that the U.S. Department of Agriculture launched a federal probe at the end of last year into Neuralink for violations of the Animal Welfare Act.<\/p>\n<p>Working at Neuralink also sounds pretty stressful if Elon\u2019s timescales are anything to go by. Alongside the alleged animal welfare violations, the article also states Musk told employees he would trigger a \u201cmarket failure\u201d at the company unless Neuralink employees made progress.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subhead-embed color-accent bg-base font-accent font-size text-align\">What does it mean for investors?<\/h2>\n<p>Neuralink isn\u2019t publicly traded, but it isn\u2019t hard to imagine that it could happen one day in the future if the human trials succeed. For now, though, investors can only focus on the company\u2019s growth &#8211; and the figures are off the charts.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, Neuralink\u2019s latest funding round raised $280 million. The round was led by Founders Fund, a venture capital fund backed by Peter Thiel, Musk\u2019s former co-founder at PayPal. The company didn\u2019t elaborate on the valuation on which the funds were raised.<\/p>\n<p>We do have some idea already of Neuralink\u2019s value. In the summer, it was reported that Neuralink was worth over $5 billion once news of the FDA approval had spread. The market cap is based on privately executed stock trades carried out by existing shareholders like employees and early backers rather than new investors.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subhead-embed color-accent bg-base font-accent font-size text-align\">The bottom line<\/h2>\n<p>It\u2019s exciting times for Neuralink, despite the many controversies the company faces over the speed at which it\u2019s rocketed forwards at to get to the point of human trials. Given the size of its latest funding round, it\u2019s clear Neuralink\u2019s backers think the idea has foundations to grow a new area of science.<\/p>\n<p>Neuralink and its competitor Synchron have the potential to completely change the world. It\u2019s that science fiction-level of wondrous thinking that means VCs and angel investors want to pile in so they can get in at the ground level. Unfortunately, it\u2019s going to take years or even decades to know if either company has a viable product.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/qai\/2023\/09\/21\/neuralink-human-trials-set-to-begin-as-elon-musk-starts-recruiting-for-candidates\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key takeaways Neuralink is looking for human candidates to test its brain chip implants The company received FDA approval for human trials in May Neuralink isn\u2019t publicly traded, but its latest funding round raised $280 million from the likes of Peter Thiel\u2019s fund Are the days of Terminator nearly upon us? Neuralink, Elon Musk\u2019s human<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-investing"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.12 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Neuralink Human Trials Set To Begin As Elon Musk Starts Recruiting For Candidates. 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