Through its technology, Advanced Bionics strives to send as much information to the cochlea as possible.

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For 16 years, Advanced Bionics has remained steadfast in its commitment to help individuals who are deaf and hard-of-hearing experience a better quality of life. The company evolved from a medical device manufacturer that developed microinfusion systems used to treat diabetes. However, in the 1980s, a University of California at San Francisco laboratory created a cochlear implant system that delivered sound information to a patient’s auditory nerve. This would inevitably fuel the Sylmar, Calif.-based firm’s rise to success.   

Cochlear implants operate by receiving sound waves that enter the system through a microphone on a headpiece. The sound waves are then converted into a digital code that has been programmed to maximize sound and speech understanding. Once processed, the electrically coded signal is transmitted through the skin via radio frequency waves to the implant. When the device receives the signal, it is then sent to an array of electrodes that stimulate the hearing nerve fibers within the cochlea, at which point the auditory nerve delivers the signal to the brain for interpretation.   

Intrigued by the idea of enabling sound comprehension in the deaf, Advanced Bionics’ Chairman Alfred Mann entered into an agreement with the university to build upon its initial work, enabling the development and manufacture of a cochlear implant.    

That work began in 1987, and the first device was created and implanted into a human being in 1991. The company was officially formed in January 1993 as Advanced Bionics under the leadership of President and CEO Jeff Greiner.   

“We are building a company with a culture where quality matters most, where innovation and time to market are the keys to our financial success, where crazy ideas are encouraged, where discipline and teamwork are part of our fabric, and where our employees understand the privilege of being engaged together in a business whose mission is to improve the lives of others,” Greiner says.

120 Steps Ahead
At the time Advanced Bionics was founded, the market for cochlear implant systems was fairly untapped, with only one competitor producing a similar device, which opted to send selective features of speech to the cochlea. Advanced Bionics, on the other hand, dispatched all speech components to the ear, which allowed the brain to process the information comprehensively, enabling the patient to enjoy a fuller spectrum of speech. Today, the company continues to live up to its name, issuing generation upon generation of cochlear implant systems that grow more sophisticated as the technology progresses.   

“Speech signals are complex, but simple compared to other signals like music,” Vice President of Marketing Jerry Schloffman explains. “You don’t have to hear every sound; you can still put a sentence together based on context. Early cochlear implant systems were saying, ‘Here are two important aspects of speech, let’s send that to the cochlea and hold everything else back.’    

“Our philosophy was to send as much information to the cochlea as possible, and that philosophy has been the cornerstone of our technical development.”    

Advanced Bionics’ latest goal is to enable patients to hear music. “Our newest product is called the Harmony system,” Schloffman says. “Here, we have the ability to process sound using 120 spectral bands. Prior to Harmony, we were limited to 16 spectral bands and our competitors were and still are using 22. If you imagine a piano’s 88 keys and someone said, ‘I want you to play me a song using only 16 keys,’ you could probably do so, and it would be close, but not perfect. Now imagine delivering the same signal, but splitting it up against all the piano keys. All of a sudden, music takes on a whole new life.   

“The reason we’re able to do 120 spectral bands is because we have multiple power sources inside the electronics that are implanted into the head,” he adds. “A normal-hearing cochlea has 20,000 receptive hair cells and we are replacing the hair cells with electrodes. This won’t replace normal hearing, but if you imagine a piano again, you press one key and hear a sound; you press two keys together and you get a unique sound. By being able to turn on two electrodes at the same time, we create a perception that is different from either of those two electrodes used individually. That’s what we call ‘current steering,’ and we are the only company that has current steering.”

Continuous Improvement
Advanced Bionics’ mission to improve the quality of life for the end-user is not limited to focusing on a patient’s capability to hear. “We have released seven different external speech processors, each one having functional and cosmetic enhancements,” Schloffman explains. “Previously, the only way to upgrade was to have the first implant taken out and another one installed to replace it. We have a goal of building technology that goes into the head as transparently as possible so it can take advantage of software upgrades without the need for surgery.”    

The FDA has approved Advanced Bionics to market its implants for use in post-lingual deafened adults and children. “We’re implanted in children from one-year old to patients over 100 years old, so we have to design a product that can work for [everyone],” he says. “We’re working hard to give children the ability to develop speech patterns faster as they learn what sounds are. We’re working hard on software that will allow patients to hear better in noise. Sitting in a quiet room is fine, but eating in a crowded restaurant can be a little bit difficult. We’re working hard on improving our patients’ possibility for peak performance.   

“While the No. 1 most important thing is hearing, the No. 2 focus is lifestyle. In the next few months we will launch a product that will allow us to take the weight and size of the battery off the ear and clip it to a shirt collar or the back of a onesie. While the original goal was to hide it as much as possible, it’s also become more mainstream. You see people walk down the street with a Bluetooth headset and a cochlear implant doesn’t look that dissimilar.”

Making a Difference
According to Schloffman, there are primarily three companies in the world that provide this technology, but Advanced Bionics is the only one in the United States. “We try to embrace the community that we operate out of in Southern California, but we also embrace the fact that we are a global business,” he says. “Over half of our business is outside the United States, so we have to develop a product that works in markets around the world, from developed markets such as Europe to emerging markets such as China where social economic factors won’t allow for the same healthcare system. That’s a challenge.   

“We are a patient-driven technology company that allows patients to hear things this industry thought to be impossible not more than a decade ago,” he adds. “It is that ability that drives most of our developments.”   

This ability evokes passion in the firm’s employees, Schloffman says. “What we are building, selling and marketing really changes lives,” he notes. “Jeff Greiner saw this as one of the most important things we can do. Everyone who works at Advanced Bionics understands there is someone out there relying on us to hear. What that does is create an environment where everyone understands that they are having a direct impact on a patient’s life. That employee can’t help but walk away with a great sense of pride in what they’re doing.”