Contact TCNL: Wicab, Inc. & BrainPort™

What is Wicab, Inc.?

Wicab, Inc. was established in 1998 by Dr. Paul Bach-y-Rita and Mitch Tyler to commercialize technology originally developed in the Tactile Display Lab (now TCNL) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wicab is a for-profit corporation separate from TCNL, which is a non-profit University laboratory.

Wicab markets the BrainPort™ Balance Device and BrainPort™ Vision Device in Canada, Brazil, and several European countries. As of March 3, 2010, BrainPort™ devices were considered investigational and not yet approved by the US FDA and not for sale in the US. Please contact Wicab for up-to-date details concerning the regulatory status of BrainPort™ technology. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) database www.clinicaltrials.gov contains information concerning three Wicab clinical trials (status as of 3/3/2010):

• Use of the BrainPort® Balance Device to Improve Balance in Adults With Balance Deficits Due to Stroke (NCT00567944) (Suspended)
• Safety and Efficacy of the BrainPort™ Balance Device to Improve Balance in Bilateral Vestibular Hypofunction (NCT00254228) (Suspended)
• Safety and Efficacy Study of BrainPort® Balance Device in Peripheral Vestibular Dysfunction (NCT00768378) (Active)

Please contact Wicab directly for information concerning availability of BrainPort™ devices, regulatory status, ongoing clinical trials, and business inquiries with Wicab:

Bob Beckman, CEO
Wicab, Inc.
8476 Greenway Blvd., Suite 200
Middleton, WI 53562
Ph. 608-829-4500

How is Wicab, Inc. related to TCNL and UW-Madison?

Wicab licenses key technology from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), which is the intellectual property manager for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The inventors of the core tongue tactile display technology, "Tongue-placed tactile output device," US Patent 6,430,450, are Paul Bach-y-Rita and Kurt Kaczmarek. The first prototype of this technology is the Tongue Display Unit (TDU), a general-purpose research and demonstration tool developed by Kaczmarek in 1999 at TCNL and still used for research at several laboratories. Wicab's BrainPort™ devices represent the licensed, commercial implementation of tongue-based sensory subsitution technology, first demonstrated using the TDU.

Ongoing research at TCNL supports our mission to advance the fields of sensory substitution and non-invasive neuromodulation for functional recovery from sensory and neurological impairments.