Cochlear Limited

Cochlear Limited

Type	Public
Traded as	ASX: COH
Industry	Biotechnology
Founded	1981
Headquarters	Sydney, Australia
Key people	Chris Smith (CEO) Rick Holliday-Smith (Chairman)
Products	Cochlear implants Bone-anchored hearing aids Cochlear wireless accessories Bone anchored prosthetics
Revenue	A$925.6 million (2015) [1]
Net income	A$145.8 million (2015) [1]
Number of employees	2,800 in 20 countries (2015)[1]
Website	www.cochlear.com

Cochlear (ASX: COH) is a medical device company that designs, manufactures and supplies the Nucleus cochlear implant, the Hybrid electro-acoustic implant and the Baha bone conduction implant.^[2]

Based in Sydney, Cochlear was formed in 1981 with finance from the Australian government to commercialise the implants pioneered by Dr Graeme Clark.^[3][4] Today, the company holds over two-thirds of the worldwide hearing implant market,^[5][6] with more than 250,000 people receiving one of Cochlear's implants since 1982.^[2]

Cochlear was named Australia's most innovative company in 2002 and 2003,^[7] and one of the world's most innovative companies by Forbes in 2011.^[8]

Products

Cochlear produces three implants for different medical situations.

Nucleus is a system combining an electrical simulation device that is surgically implanted behind a patient's ear, a processor that captures sounds, and an electrode array that relays the sounds to the brain.^[2][9] It is a direct descendant of the original cochlear implants, also known as Nucleus, developed by Dr Graeme Clark in Melbourne during the 1970s.^[3] Nucleus was the first cochlear implant to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.^[10] The system is upgradable, for example by installing a new sound processor, without surgery.^[2] Cochlear's latest processor, Nucleus 6, was launched in 2013 after six years of development.^[11] It replaced the Nucleus 5 system. In 2011, the Nucleus 5 CI500 series internal implant was recalled^[12] with up to a 24% failure rate.^[13] In 2013, the Nucleus implant recorded 99% reliability over the last 8 years, more than any similar product.^[14]

Hybrid is an electro-acoustic system combining a cochlear implant with an acoustic hearing aid, suitable for patients who have residual hearing at low frequencies.^[15] The implant of the Hybrid system is a smaller variant of Nucleus, with an electrode that relays only high frequency sounds,^[15] while the acoustic component amplifies low frequency sounds and transmits them to the brain through the ordinary nerve pathway.^[2] Hybrid was launched in 2008 and won Australian Engineering Excellence and International Design Awards in 2009.^[15]

Baha (derived from bone anchored hearing aid) is a bone conduction system involving a small titanium implant that is ossointegrated with the bone behind a patient's ear.^[2] A sound processor captures sounds, which is passed to the implant and directly transferred to the inner ear through the skull.^[2][16] Baha was originally produced by Swedish biotechnology group Entific Medical Systems before that company was acquired by Cochlear in 2005.^[17]

Corporate Affairs

Cochlear manufactures principally in Sweden and Australia, including at a purpose-built facility at Macquarie University in Sydney.^[18][19] The company's products are supplied to over 100 countries internationally, with 43% sales revenue ($403 million) derived from the Americas, 40% ($377.6 million) from Europe, the Middle East and Africa and 17% ($161.3 million) from the Asia-Pacific region as of 2015.^[2] Cochlear spent $128 million on research and development in FY15.^[2]

In 2011, reports arose of Nucleus model CI500 implants shutting down, although less than 1% of devices were affected and the failures posed no health risks.^[20][21] Cochlear funded a complete recall of the model, with an older version of the Nucleus implant being available as a replacement.^[20][21] The company spent $101.3 million on the recall.^[22]

References

See also

• Cochlear Bone Anchored Solutions AB