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NEW YORK CITY, New York: This week, Thomas Oxley, CEO of Synchron Inc., a rival to Elon Musk’s Neuralink, said the company is preparing to recruit patients for a large-scale clinical brain implant trial, which it requires for commercial approval for its device.

Synchron will launch an online registry for patients interested in joining the trial, which is planned to involve dozens of participants, noting that the New-York-based startup has received interest from about 120 clinical trial centers to help run the study.

“Part of this registry is to start to enable local physicians to speak to patients with motor impairment. There is a lot of interest so we do not want it to come in a big bottleneck right before the study we will be doing,” Oxley said.

Both companies initially aim to help paralyzed patients type on a computer using devices that interpret brain signals.

Synchron is farther along in testing its brain implant than Neuralink. It received U.S. authorization for preliminary testing in July 2021 and has implanted its device in six patients.

The company reported that trial results in four patients in Australia showed no serious adverse side effects.

Oxley said that while awaiting authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Synchron will analyze the U.S. data to prepare for the more extensive study.

The company aims to include patients who are paralyzed due to the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), stroke, and multiple sclerosis, he added.

Initially, the study is being conducted in collaboration with Mount Sinai in New York, the University at Buffalo Neurosurgery, and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), Synchron said, adding that it hopes to involve these centers in the larger trial.

Dr. David Lacomis, chief of UPMC’s Neuromuscular Division, said his team is still participating in the preliminary human testing “and the study is going well.”

Dr. Elad Levy, Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, which has two patients in the small trial, said, “Our site has enrolled the first and only stroke patient as we feel this is a significant population that can benefit.”

Instead of being surgically implanted into the brain cortex like Neuralink’s device, Synchron’s device is delivered to the brain via the large vein next to the motor cortex.