AlterG Shoots for Moon with Space Treadmill
March 19, 2010
A souped-up treadmill developed for astronauts wants to boldly go where few pieces of exercise equipment have gone before — to patients with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.
Fremont-based AlterG Inc. has sold some $15 million worth of its anti-gravity treadmill to professional sports teams, physical therapy clinics and nursing homes. Now with broad clearance from the Food & Drug Administration, AlterG’s next goal is to show that its “unweighting therapy” can help build muscle in patients with crippling neurodegenerative diseases as well.
That strategy is due in part to its backers, like Versant Ventures, which came aboard early last year as part of an $8 million financing round. Versant has brought a been-there-done-that perspective that is focusing AlterG on gathering scientific proof that neuroscience patients, for example, see a benefit from the $24,500 device. That would help expand the device’s use beyond knee replacement patients and runners.
The FDA’s OK in 2008 allows the device to be used for any lower body injury or surgery as well as training for neurology patients, weight control programs, geriatric conditions and athletic conditioning.
“The pressure on the joints is half, but the gait, the motion and the balance are the same,” said AlterG CEO Lars Barfod.
This is how it works: A patient pulls on a pair of special, rubber-like shorts, steps onto the treadmill and raises a metal bar, which holds the shell of a flexible plastic bubble, until it locks in place at the hips. Then the patient zips together the shorts and the bubble apparatus, creating a seal as air pressure is raised anywhere from 1 percent to 50 percent of body weight.
The patient’s lower half is encapsulated in the pressurized bubble and supported while walking or running on the treadmill with a normal gait, reducing the typical pounding on the joints.
Funny looking? Maybe. Effective? AlterG, Barfod and physical therapists believe it helps patients build bone density and muscle endurance.
The technology was developed in the 1990s by Robert Whalen and Alan Hargens at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View to help astronauts minimize the loss of bone mass while in space. Whalen tinkered with a version in his garage before his son, Sean, came across it.
Sean Whalen is cofounder and chief technical officer of AlterG.
AlterG has a more this-world focus on selling its latest model — smaller, quieter and costing $50,000 less than earlier versions of the device — to physical therapy centers, nursing homes and assisted living centers. It started selling or leasing the M300 model in October.
“The challenge is there are so many areas (of neuroscience) to study,” said Dr. Ross Jaffe, cofounder of Versant Ventures in Menlo Park and a member of AlterG’s board, “so the focus is on those larger areas.”
Some 200 of the devices, assembled in Fremont, have been sold to date. But Barfod expects AlterG this year will sell more than 500 of the M300 model.
AlterG employs 35 people.
Despite the push into neuroscience, physical rehabilitation is expected to remain AlterG’s biggest market.
Nearly two-thirds of NBA teams have the device, Barfod said, as do the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University. It also is on the set of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” to help participants overcome injuries.
The proof, however, is in the step.
“In rehab, there’s so many tools out there,” said Chris Chorak, owner of San Francisco’s Presidio Sport & Medicine, which has had an older version of the device for months. “I see all the runners in the city — if any clinic should have this, it’s me.”