Firm that specializes in noninvasive brain treatments moving to Santa Fe

Nov. 24--A new business that aims to tap into the energy of the brain to lessen chronic pain, treat concussions and possibly change the course of diseases such as dementia has relocated from San Francisco to New Mexico.

Rio Grande Neurosciences specializes in noninvasive brain stimulation. The company was formed five years ago with a $25,000 grant from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Its founder, Steven Gluckstern, has lived in San Francisco, but the firm has managed clinical trials and research in California, Texas, Massachusetts, Ohio and The University of New Mexico.

The company has since made some strategic acquisitions, including a top competitor, and raised some $20 million from 50 investors as it anticipates final review of its medical devices next year. The goal is to assemble the products and manage the company from Santa Fe.

Gluckstern has a background in education, nonprofit work, progressive politics, corporate finance, even professional sports.

But for a decade, he has been fascinated by the limits of pharmacology to treat brain swelling and deformities. And many conditions are now associated with brain inflammation, from strokes and multiple sclerosis to Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, even addiction.

But traditional drug treatments have stalled due to what science calls the blood-brain barrier.

The barrier is thought of as a "No Trespassing" sign for the brain. It was discovered a century ago when scientists injected blue dye into the bloodstream of animals to find that it spread through tissues in the whole body except the brain and spinal cord.

Since then, it has been found that the small capillaries that line the brain are semi-permeable but prohibit many materials as a way to protect the neurotransmitters from foreign substances.

So the promise for brain treatment now comes from using the brain's own electrical pulses to alter its instrumentation.

"Ten years ago when I started, no one thought it would work. They'd look at you and say, 'You're in the voodoo medical business.' Now no one says this. The pharma people can't do this, they can't get into the brain," Gluckstern said.

But it is technological advances in another field, imaging, that propel noninvasive treatments today. Sean Hagberg, a company co-founder who is a clinical assistant professor of neurosurgery at UNM, said there has been a bevy of electrode technology on the shelf for decades, but it was used "with blind faith and hope."

Now it is possible to chart the brain in real time with machines such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI).

Watching those transformations -- documenting what works, what can be applied to other patients and developing the treatment data -- is what has the potential to layer a new medical discipline.

"The technology of being able to see into the brain, that's the biggest change, as far as being able to build a business around this," Gluckstern said.

"The more finely we can understand brain injury and how people's brain changes, the better I can develop the therapies," Hagberg said.

The National Institutes of Health as well as major drug companies such as GlaxoSmithKline also are investing in the emerging area called "electroceuticals." And Rio Grande Neurosciences itself has a Department of Defense grant for research the military hopes can boost cognition.

The first step toward having a medical device that can be sold, however, comes when Rio Grande Neurosciences submits a formal application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use its Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, or TMS technology, to treat chronic pain and depression.

The technology is already approved and being used by five other companies, but Rio Grande thinks its method is superior because it uses multiple magnets and has developed smarter software. Gluckstern expects development of those machines to start next year.

Then, in 2017, it plans to move forward on what it believes would be its most marketable device, a head covering called a Theracap that delivers a much smaller pulsed electromagnetic field. The device is already approved to reduce inflammation below the neck but still needs approvals from the FDA for brain treatment.

A clinical trial for concussion treatment is underway in Texas with high school soccer and football players. The goal is not to prevent concussion, which is basically a swelling in the brain, but to lessen recovery times. Gluckstern's research team includes some who worked with NFL football players on a study of traumatic brain injury, which has resulted in a medical consensus on the need to treat concussions earlier.

"There are 5 million concussions in the U.S. for which we have no treatment," Gluckstern said.

Gluckstern, 64, himself has an eclectic background, having served as a board member for both Amherst College and the National Hockey League when he had ownership interest in the Phoenix Coyotes and New York Islanders

His first career was in education, eventually becoming a public school superintendent in Colorado, before pursuing a degree at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He also worked for investor Warren Buffett, serving as general manager of reinsurance operations at Berkshire Hathaway, according to Bloomberg News,

His father was a physicist at LANL in the late 1950s, then became head of the physics department at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and then the college provost from 1969 until 1975. In 2006, Steven Gluckstern endowed the Robert L. Gluckstern Distinguished Professorship in Physics to honor his father.

Steven Gluckstern has relocated to Santa Fe with his wife, Judith O'Connor Gluckstern, who has degrees in counseling and education. The couple has two adult children.

Contact Bruce Krasnow at brucek@ sfnewmexican.com.

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