(Bloomberg) -- Synchron Inc. founder Tom Oxley said Thursday his brain-device company would expand beyond paralysis treatment into other areas such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s.

Synchron, a competitor to Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp., will take its existing device and re-purpose it for the additional treatments, the company said. On stage at the Bloomberg Tech Summit on Thursday, Oxley said that the brain technology industry was entering a “large growth stage,” and that “a lot of capital” was now flowing into the industry. 

Unlike Neuralink, which is the highest profile company in the space, Synchron doesn’t require brain surgery. Instead it implants its so-called Stentrode into a vein in the neck, relying on blood vessels to take it to the top of the motor cortex in the brain. Patients then use the device to manipulate outside implements, such as computer cursors, via their thoughts.

The company plans to start a US Food and Drug Administration review for its treatment of Parkinson’s and epilepsy, Oxley said in an interview with Bloomberg News this week. He declined to give a timetable for the review or the treatments. 

Oxley compared Synchron’s technology to the pacemaker — which is a simpler procedure for cardiac issues than open-heart surgery. The treatment could reach far more people than the few thousand annually who currently receive brain implants for epilepsy and Parkinson’s, he said.

The Stentrode is currently implanted in a handful of US patients. It is in the early feasibility portion of the review process, the company said, the first of three major steps.

--With assistance from Ed Ludlow.

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