While the United States recorded nearly 80,000 deaths in 2020 due to overdoses due to opioids, the start-up Subli-Med has just obtained FDA approval, essential to market its non-drug solution for the treatment of chronic pain across the Atlantic .
Nicolas Karst, engineer by training, and Jean-Pierre Alibeu, doctor, combined their skills to create Subli-Med in October 2015 in Moirans (Isère). “We started from the observation that there is a therapy that does not require drugs to act on certain pains: transcutaneous electrical neurostimulation”, specifies Nicolas Karst.
The concept dates back to the 1960s but was abandoned because its use proved to be restrictive but also stigmatizing for patients, who are easily identifiable. “We had the idea to make the system more practical, ergonomic but also more discreet, in particular by connecting it.”
Connected discretion
The two partners gave birth to ActiTENS. The device allows you to launch an electrical neurostimulation session using your smartphone from your workplace, a movie theater or a dinner with friends. ActiTENS includes flexible patches equipped with electrodes connected to a pulse generator worn on the body and easily concealed under clothing. The high frequency system reduces the pain induced by low back pain, lumbosciatica, osteoarthritis or postherpetic pain in the context of the herpes zoster virus as well as neuropathic pain.
“The pain decreases when we send an impulse but returns when it stops. A second effect consists in sending a lower frequency, of one hertz, which, over a sufficiently long period produces endorphins whose sensations are felt several times. for hours. “ The discretion of the miniaturized device and its launch via a smartphone, which has entered into practice, contributes to long-term use.
Open to the world
Available on Android and IOS, the ActiTENS application was designed by the Subli-Med teams and has class 2A CE marking, essential for medical devices. “The application will also collect data that will monitor uses and the development of pain both for the doctor and the patient, actor of his treatment”, explains Nicolas Karst. The start-up relies on gamification or gamification to integrate the patient into the process.
Reimbursed by social security, the device must however be prescribed by a doctor from one of the 250 pain centers in France. Currently, 10,000 people use the device in France. After raising three million euros during two fundraisers between 2016 and 2018, the start-up is preparing a new fundraising of five million euros by the end of the year to begin its opening to internationally, both to the American market and to Europe or the Middle East.
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