• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

First-Of-Its-Kind Vagus Nerve Implant Gets FDA Approval As A Therapy For Rheumatoid Arthritis

August 1, 2025 by Deborah Bloomfield

A first-of-its-kind implant has just been granted approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Developed by SetPoint Medical, the neuroimmune modulation device works by delivering electrical stimulation to the vagus nerve once a day to initiate the body’s innate anti-inflammatory pathways. It essentially prods the body to use the tools it already has to get inflammation under control, marking a novel approach to managing autoimmune disease.

Dr Kevin J Tracey, co-founder of SetPoint Medical and author of The Great Nerve, is the first to admit that when it comes to the vagus nerve, there’s a lot of misinformation floating around. Underneath the people trying to sell you things, however, is an intriguing new field of medicine that aims to hijack this superhighway, but what does the vagus nerve actually do?

Signals traveling in the vagus nerve are operating at the level of reflexes.

Dr Kevin J Tracey

“It carries the signals back and forth between your body and your brain that maintain a balanced function of all your organs, so you don’t have to think about it,” Tracey told IFLScience in the August issue of CURIOUS. “Signals traveling in the vagus nerve are operating at the level of reflexes. I call them healing reflexes, or healthy reflexes, and what they do is they are activated by changes in the function of your organs, whether it’s your heart, or your kidneys, or your intestines.”

It’s curious, really, that we all know it as “the vagus nerve” because you actually have two, and each one is made up of 100,000 fibers. In the same way that you have two thumbs, or two kidneys, each one sits on either side of your body, and across the total 200,000 nerves, they carry the crucial information that keeps you healthy. Impressive, and vital to our survival.

It’s so important, actually, that if you cut it on both sides, in the neck, it’s fatal. You die.

Dr Kevin J Tracey

“It’s so important, actually, that if you cut it on both sides, in the neck, it’s fatal. You die,” said Tracey. “It’s the only nerve in the body that, if you cut it on both sides, you die. That’s why Galen, sort of the world’s first scientist, called the vagus nerve ‘the great nerve’, and that name stood for centuries. I think it’s a better name, actually.”

The SetPoint System is an implantable neurostimulation device that aims to hack into the great nerve by stimulating it once daily. This then activates a series of pathways that are an innate part of our physiology as a means to control certain illnesses, and now it’s received FDA approval as a therapy for rheumatoid arthritis.

This debilitating chronic autoimmune disease affects over 1.5 million Americans. Characterized by the immune system attacking healthy tissue, it can cause joint pain, bone erosion, and significantly reduce mobility, and there is currently no cure.

The existing treatment options include biological and targeted synthetic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, which some patients find hard to tolerate, and around 50 percent of patients discontinue their therapies within two years. SetPoint’s goal is to provide an alternative that can effectively manage autoimmune conditions without suppressing the immune system.

Its FDA approval follows a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled study that followed 242 patients. It showed that the therapy was well-tolerated with a low level of serious adverse events related to it (1.7 percent). It also provides a long-term solution for patients living with this chronic disease.

“The approval of the SetPoint System highlights the potential of neuroimmune modulation as a novel approach for autoimmune disease, by harnessing the body’s neural pathways to combat inflammation,” said the study’s principal investigator, Dr Mark Richardson, Director of Functional Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor of Neurosciences at Harvard Medical School, in a statement. “After implantation during a minimally invasive outpatient procedure, the SetPoint device is programmed to automatically administer therapy on a predetermined schedule for up to 10 years, simplifying care for people living with RA.”

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. iPad Air 5 might get close competition from Realme’s upcoming Android tablet
  2. Matillion raises $150M at a $1.5B valuation for its low-code approach to integrating disparate data sources
  3. Ultrasounds Show Unborn Fetuses Making Disgusted Faces When Mom Eats Kale
  4. Twitter Says It Is No Longer Stopping Any COVID-19 Misinformation

Source Link: First-Of-Its-Kind Vagus Nerve Implant Gets FDA Approval As A Therapy For Rheumatoid Arthritis

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Chikungunya Virus Is Spreading In China: As CDC Considers Travel Advisory, Here’s What To Know
  • First-Of-Its-Kind Vagus Nerve Implant Gets FDA Approval As A Therapy For Rheumatoid Arthritis
  • First Time Crystal Made Of “Exotic” Giant Atoms 1,000 times Larger Than Hydrogen
  • Prehistoric Humans Began Eating Tubers 700,000 Years Before Our Teeth Evolved To Do So
  • The World’s Oldest Wild Bird “Surprised” Everyone With A Hatched Chick At 74
  • “Spectacular” New Species Of 40cm Giant Stick Insect May Be Australia’s New Heaviest Insect
  • What Is “Nobel Disease”, And Why Do So Many Prizewinners Go On To Develop It?
  • New Human “Mini-Brains” Combine Cells From The Whole Brain – Even The Blood Vessels
  • Aging NASA Spacecraft Could Intercept The Interstellar Comet On The Other Side Of The Sun, Astronomers Suggest
  • The Deepest Complex Ecosystem Ever Discovered Has Been Found 9,000 Meters Below The Sea
  • Drone Footage Shows Synchronized Moves By Killer Whale Pairs Are More Effective Than Hunting Alone
  • For The First Time, A Quantum Computer Has Been Sent Into Space
  • A Vast Ocean Of Water May Be Trapped In The Transition Zone Beneath Our Feet
  • Beneath Antarctica’s Sea Ice, Leopard Seals Sing Nursery Rhymes In Search Of Love
  • Double-Slit Experiment Performed With Single Atoms Shows Einstein Was Wrong
  • Forecasting Tomorrow: How Science Fiction Is Helping Scientists Explore Possible Futures
  • Siberian Mummy’s 2,000-Year-Old Tattoos Reveal The History Of Ancient Art
  • Humans Were Buzzing On Psychoactive Betel Nuts 4,000 Years Ago
  • Megaflash Stretching 892 Kilometers Sets New World Record For Longest Lightning Strike
  • Your Organs Don’t All Age At The Same Rate. One Is Growing Old Much Quicker Than Others
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version