This historical review is limited to the technical research and development performed at the former Department of Applied Electronics (now Signals and Systems) at Chalmers during the period from 1977 to the end of 1990´s when the project was taken out from Nobel Biocare and Entific Medical Systems was formed. It should be pointed out that our group at Chalmers has not been involved in any development of the surgical equipment or the osseointegrated implants (excluding the abutment for the snap coupling) for the BAHA.

It will also be briefly described how projects like this one and others in the Biomedical engineering field have a long way to go from a small project idea through all phases from a pure research project, via early venture investments, via discontinuations of business and set backs to a successful business standing on its own.

The technical development of the BAHA

When the close collaboration between Chalmers and Nobel Biocare commenced during 1997 a drawing was designed (to be used as a T-shirt illustration), see Figure 2, showing the technical milestones achieved over time where Chalmers had been deeply involved. At Chalmers major contributions where mainly made by a group consisting of the author, Peder Carlsson and Stefan Stenfelt who both gained their PhD’s in bone conduction related subjects.

The historic review of the technical development below will basically follow the timeline of Figure 2.

Figure 2: Technical BAHA milestones up to 1996.

As you can see the vertical axis shows the accumulated number of patients operated. It looks like it was “0” patients from 1977 to 1985 but it was as mentioned above 3 patients at start and then the number gradually increased to 60-70 patients when the project was evaluated and efficacy statements were defended in the thesis in 19842. After this point there was an increasing commercial interest from Nobel industries of our technical solutions that led to a license agreement in 1985 between Nobel Biotech and P&B Research (P&B=Peder & Bo) that still is effective. Over the years, our work led to several unique technical solutions some of which were patented. Altogether there are 12 different patents approved to date (2006) and some new patent applications from our group are pending. For cost reasons some were only applied for in Sweden. Some of the patents have been terminated by the 20 year time limit but some are relatively new and might play an important role also in the future. The value of patents can sometimes be questioned because of the high costs to apply for and then to defend them. For example, bigger and leading companies may not pay attention to patent rights as long as they are owned by economically weaker parts like a typical inventor.

Page 1      Page 2      Page 3      Page 4      Page 5

Page 6      Page 7      Page 8      Page 9      Page 10

Page 11    Page 12    Page 13    Page 14    Page 15