ABILITY Neurotech
Swiss neurotech company building a fully implantable, battery-free ECoG brain-computer interface that streams raw neural data out through the scalp over a wireless optical link, for patients with severe paralysis from ALS, spinal cord injury, and stroke. Spun out of the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in March 2025.
Overview
ABILITY Neurotech is a Swiss clinical-stage brain-computer interface company building a fully implantable wireless ECoG (electrocorticography) BCI system designed for long-term home use in patients with severe paralysis. The company spun out of the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva in March 2025, building on more than eight years of prior R&D and approximately $50 million of investment at the Wyss Center under the early support of philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss. Rotem Kopel, PhD, serves as CEO.
Technology
ABILITY’s device is a sub-scalp fully implantable battery-free wireless BCI that records broadband neural activity from an ECoG electrode array on the surface of the brain. The signature engineering claim is a 50 Mb/s transcutaneous optical data link, an infrared communication channel that streams raw broadband neural data through the scalp. The architecture is designed to support chronic long-term home use beyond clinical-research settings, with comfort and safety profiles intended for routine living conditions.
Clinical programme
ABILITY received Investigational Medical Device Dossier (IMDD) approval from the Medical Research Ethics Committee (MREC) NedMec in the Netherlands on 26 May 2026 to begin the first chronic implantation study of its device in ALS patients. The study will be conducted at UMC Utrecht under the INTRECOM consortium, which brings together UMC Utrecht (clinical lead Mariska Vansteensel, PhD), the Technical University of Graz (Austria), ABILITY Neurotech, and German implantable electronics manufacturer CorTec. ABILITY announced the first-in-human intraoperative recording of its device on 21 July 2026 at TUM University Hospital Rechts der Isar in Munich, in up to five brain-tumour surgery patients; the chronic ALS trial at UMC Utrecht and TU Graz is scheduled to start in Q4 2026. The company has applied for FDA Breakthrough Device Designation (decision pending as of July 2026) and is pursuing parallel EU MDR + FDA regulatory pathways.
Strategic position
ABILITY is one of three Wyss Center / EPFL / Campus Biotech Geneva-adjacent BCI companies with 2026 milestones, alongside Neurosoft Bioelectronics (Lacour lab spinout) and ONWARD Medical (Courtine / Bloch spinout, Euronext listed, with US ADRs on OTCQX). The company’s ECoG-with-optical-link architecture differentiates it from both penetrating intracortical BCIs (Neuralink, Paradromics, Precision Neuroscience) and from non-invasive surface-electrode peers, sitting in the high-bandwidth fully-implantable middle position.