PORTEFEUILLE

Hand impairments are among the most common consequences of neurological conditions such as cerebrovascular accidents, spinal cord injuries and cerebral palsies. Due to the fundamental role that our hands play in, deficits in hand functions (e.g. from stroke or spinal cord injury) drastically reduce our ability to perform even simple tasks, such as preparing and eating a meal. Current solutions aimed at treating and assisting hand function fail to restore grasping, which results in more than 50 M people worldwide who typically rely on caregivers to live.
Emovo Care aims to bring movement home for people with hand motor impairments by offering a portable orthosis that can both actively open and close the hand.

Emovo Care’s device is based on patent-pending artificial tendons, developed during a PhD at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), which have the unique competitive advantage of actively opening and closing the hand of the user in a portable manner. This is particularly important for hemiparetic stroke patients who typically suffer from a clenched fist due to mild to moderate spasticity. Furthermore, the device was specifically designed for independent use for persons with hemiparesis and can be worn on and off using only one hand. Lastly, the device is portable and lightweight, which makes it an ideal tool to provide hand movement home.

Emovo Care SA is a medical device company (incorporated in June 2020) developing accessible robotic devices to bring movement home for people with motor impairments. The company is a spin-off from PhD research conducted at EPFL and the official project to commercialize the prototype YAGO (Your Assistive Grasp Orthosis) started in January 2019. In the fall of 2019, Gerbert Rüf Stiftung funded the project to implement and certify a Quality Management System (QMS), in order to support the transfer of technology to a commercial CE-marked medical device and prepare for sales to clinics. Within the project period, the project has secured an additional CHF600k in funding, secured a first 5 figure paid partnership, submitted a second patent, and implemented and certified its ISO 13485 QMS. The next milestones are to obtain the CE mark of the first product, raise a CHF 1M equity round, and expand the team to bring movement home for people with motor impairments.

Randazzo et al. (2018). Mano: A wearable hand exoskeleton for activities of daily living and neurorehabilitation. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

Instant T: Quand l’innovation gagne sur le handicap, RTS, 20.05.2019
Feedback enhances brainwave control of a novel hand-exoskeleton, EFPL News, 22.01.2018
also covered by Reuters, EurekAlert, Science et Vie, SWI swissinfo, 24 heures, RTS Couleur 3, Netzwoche, Blick and others