Medical Device Startup Auricle Celebrates Licensing with Bell-Ringing Celebration

9/21/2023

Auricle, Inc. recently joined the Innovation Partnerships team to celebrate their licensing agreement with the University of Michigan by ringing the startup bell. The company’s co-founders, Susan Shore, Ph.D. (Auricle CSO, Professor Emerita—Otolaryngology, Physiology and Biomedical Engineering), David Martel, Ph.D. (Auricle VP of R&D), and Jon Pearson, CEO, were present at the ceremony.

Auricle is a medical device company developing treatments for tinnitus, a chronic ringing in the ears that impacts up to 15% of people. Auricle’s primary technology, the Michigan Tinnitus Device, is based on research from Shore’s lab, which found that auditory and somatosensory stimuli delivered to the face and neck reduces tinnitus by engaging damaged nerve cells to strengthen them to normal levels. 

Shore and Martel first worked with Innovation Partnerships in 2012, receiving early licensing support.  The team has received funding support from the University of Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization (MTRAC) for Life Sciences Innovation Hub, and subsequently completed two human studies on the impact of the Michigan Tinnitus Device. In 2019,  Jon Pearson was brought on board as CEO of Auricle.

Describing the Auricle team’s experience working with Innovation Partnerships, Susan Shore stated, “As scientists, we are not experienced in making the jump from clinical research to eventual regulatory clearance and then commercialization of our invention. The Innovation Partnerships team was central in providing guidance in navigating this transition, and was instrumental in identifying an experienced medical device entrepreneur to work with us.While success in scientific research is certainly gratifying, it is especially satisfying to anticipate our treatment coming to market and providing relief to the millions of global tinnitus sufferers.”