Discover 3 Amazing Facts About Cochlear
Cochlear is a company that deals with manufacturing medical devices. It designs, manufactures and supplies the Nucleus cochlear implant, the Hybrid electro-acoustic implant, and the Baha bone conduction implant.
It has been in existence for more than 35 years and continues to improve lives by their innovations.
History
Cochlear was formed in 1981, in Sydney, with finance from the Australian government to commercialize the implants invented by Dr. Graeme Clark.
With more than 250,000 people receiving one of Cochlear’s implants since its inception in 1982, today the company holds over two-thirds of the worldwide hearing implant market.
Cochlear was named Australia’s most innovative company in 2002 and 2003, and one of the most innovative companies by Forbes in 2011.
Products
Cochlear manufactures implants, bone-anchored hearing aids, Cochlear wireless accessories, and bone-anchored prosthetics. Mainly, Cochlear manufactures three implants for different medical situations which include:
i. The Nucleus is a system that combines an electrical stimulation device that is surgically inserted behind a patient's ear, a processor that captures sound, and an electrode collection that transmits sound to the brain. The Nucleus came up after the original Cochlear implants.
It was developed by Dr. Graeme Clark in Melbourne during the 1970s. It was the first implant of Cochlear to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Advancements continue to be done on the Nucleus with the latest being Nucleus 7 in 2019.
ii. Hybrid is an electro-acoustic system that combines a Cochlear implant with an acoustic hearing aid.
It is suitable for patients who have a perpetual hearing at low frequencies. The Hybrid was launched in 2008 and won the Australian Engineering Excellence and International Design Awards in 2009.
iii. Baha (bone-anchored hearing aid) is a bone conduction system involving a small titanium implant that is osseointegrated with the bone behind a patient's ear.
A sound processor capture sounds, which is then passed through the implant and directly transferred to the inner ear through the skull. Baha was originally produced by the Swedish biotechnology group Entific Medical Systems before the company was acquired by Cochlear in 2005.
Corporate Affairs
The company mainly operates in Sweden and Australia besides a purpose-built facility at Macquarie University in Sydney.
The company employs over 2,800 employees in 20 countries. Its total net worth is estimated to be about 224 million dollars with an annual revenue of about 240 million dollars as seen in 2017.
The company is headed by Rick Holiday Smith as the Chairman and Dig Howitt as the Chief Executive Officer. The company has a large market of more than 100 countries that they supply their products to.
Conclusion
Cochlear is a highly respected and trusted company due to its efficient and helpful innovations in the medical industry that help to better the lives of the deaf.
The company has spent about $128 million on research and development in FY15. Although some of the company’s implants were reported to shut down in 2011, they continue to advance on their implants each year.
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_Limited
https://www.cochlear.com/intl/home