Transcription of The Stock Network Interview with Epiminder (ASX:EPI), CEO, Rohan Hoare
Lel Smits: Epiminder, a medical device company developing continuous brain monitoring technology for epilepsy, has reached 25 patient enrollments in its DETECT US clinical study. DETECT is a prospective randomised controlled study supporting reimbursement for the MINDER system. I’m joined today by CEO Rohan Hoare to discuss what this milestone signals for trial execution, how site expansion is transitioning into recruitment and the next key inflection points for investors.
Rohan, welcome back to the Stock Network.
Rohan Hoare: Well, it’s great to be back with you again.
Lel Smits: Now, the study has reached 25 enrolled patients across more than 19 US sites with recruitment accelerating alongside ongoing site activation.
What do you think is driving this momentum and also how should investors interpret this early enrollment really as an indicator of execution strength?
Rohan Hoare: I think, well, this really sort of signals the significant unmet need that the MINDER device can play in the marketplace. Clearly, with key opinion leaders from very major academic medical centers working with us, sites from Mayo Clinic, Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Yale, et cetera, they see the gap in their clinical armamentarium. And the MINDER device is really providing a critical bridge to long-term ambulatory management for these patients.
And I think that’s what’s really driving their willingness to participate in the trial and also driving the enrollment. Okay. And the study targets 210 patients across up to 25 US sites with the next milestone of 50 patients expected in the middle of the third quarter of this calendar year.
Just how critical are the coming enrollment phases in validating clinical execution at scale? I think every month that we’re in the clinical trial is an important month to really demonstrate sort of adoption and enthusiasm across the center. So the next milestone of getting to 50 is very important. I think it would show clear acceleration in the performance of enrollment, and that’s what we would anticipate at this stage.
And I think that would go to an expectation down the track of greater commercial adoption. Excellent. And Rohan, you were recently featured in another publication.
Lel Smits: Can you talk us through the highlights there for Epiminder?
Rohan Hoare: Sure. We just had a publication in Epilepsia, which is the premier epilepsy journal. This is a companion piece to the UMPIRE trial results that were published last year.
And this actually goes to the signal quality and comparing the MINDER signal quality to that of the gold standard scalp-based EEG, which is only available for a few days at a time. And what we showed was our signals were equivalent to the scalp-based EEG, that every seizure that was recorded on scalp EEG was also recorded with the MINDER device. And very, very importantly, that the MINDER signals did not change over a long, long period of time.
So at four weeks and at six months, the signals were the same quality. So demonstrating clearly the durability of the MINDER device.
Lel Smits: Brilliant. And finally, Rohan, with four Epiminder directors recently increasing their shareholdings in the company, what do you think this signals about the internal competence of the DATEC study progress and also really EpiMINDER’s longer-term clinical and commercial outlook?
Rohan Hoare: I think it’s a vote of confidence of the board that we’re on the right path to basically execute our operational goals that we’ve set up for ourselves. And it really sort of bodes positively for sort of the longer-term outlook in terms of our commercial readiness.
Lel Smits: Rohan, I appreciate the updates from Epiminder and look forward to seeing these developments come through.
Rohan Hoare: Great. Thanks so much, Lel. Great to catch you again.
Ends