BrainScope Appoints New CEO

BrainScope announced the appointment of Susan Hertzberg as CEO. This is the 4th equity-backed venture that Hertzberg will helm. She is a proven commercial stage leader with an impressive track record of bringing innovative products and services to market and profitably scaling and delivering exceptional market growth.
 
In her new role, Hertzberg will drive the global strategy and commercialization of BrainScope’s traumatic brain injury (TBI) and concussion tools in the traditional healthcare, military and sports arenas and will expand the platform capabilities of its signature product BrainScope One to include objective assessments for brain diseases like depression and Alzheimer’s.
“BrainScope is growing rapidly given the high demand and need for non-invasive, point of care FDA-Cleared medical devices to objectively assess concussion and mild TBI,” said Founding CEO Michael Singer, who will move into the Executive Chairman role. “I am thrilled to have Susan join us and apply her unique talents and experience to scale our business and make these tools ubiquitous in the market. Her mission-driven, patient-centric approach and dynamic leadership style is a great fit and will help BrainScope reach its full potential for this very large market opportunity,” added Singer.
 
“I am delighted to join BrainScope at this important time. The company’s BrainScope One device is a powerful new non-invasive tool that helps clinicians objectively assess TBI and concussion while helping patients avoid unnecessary and costly emergency room visits and CT scanning and radiation. With the company’s focus on innovation and addressing core market needs, the opportunity to positively impact the lives of more than 75 million people globally who suffer brain injuries each year is powerful. With BrainScope’s breakthrough science, focus on innovation, and outstanding employees, I have no doubt of our future success,” stated Hertzberg.
 
A recent study conducted at Washington University demonstrated that integrating BrainScope One into the decision-making process for CT referrals would have led to a significant reduction of unnecessary CT scans by nearly one-third. Importantly, this decrease in CT use and its associated radiation would be achieved without incurring any false negative cases (100 percent sensitivity in the study). This study confirmed BrainScope’s overall CT referral rate reduction results published by Huff and colleagues (2017)¹ in a retrospective study of the data collected in the BrainScope FDA validation study².
 
In March, BrainScope announced it had concluded both algorithm development and clinical validation studies in adolescent and young adult populations using its objective, EEG-based technology. The purpose of the studies was to create and validate an objective, personalized capability for assessment of concussion and readiness to return to activities in males and females between the ages of 13-25. The studies conducted from 2015 through 2019 at 52 clinical sites included nearly 1,700 patients and healthy controls, with over 4,000 evaluations. Funding sources for the studies included a $9.9 million research contract from the U.S. Department of Defense, award funding from the NFL-GE Head Health Challenge (in which BrainScope was a two-time awardee), and BrainScope private funding.
 
References
¹ Huff JS, Naunheim R, Ghosh Dastidar S, et al. Referrals for CT scans in mild TBI patients can be aided by the use of a brain electrical activity biomarker. Amer J Emerg Med. 2018;35:1759-1783.
² Hanley D, Prichep L, Bazarian J, et al. Emergency Department triage of traumatic head injury aided by using a brain electrical activity marker: A multisite prospective observational validation trial. Acad Emerg Med. 2017; 24(5):617-627.