MED-EL

Innsbruck company founded by Ingeborg and Erwin Hochmair. It makes cochlear implants, auditory brainstem implants, systems that combine electric and acoustic stimulation, and middle-ear and bone-conduction implants.

Interface category

Cochlear implants · Auditory brainstem implants

Signal

Cochlear: Electrical pulses along an array ordered by pitchABI: Electrical pulses across a paddle of disc electrodes

Invasiveness

Invasive

Recording / stimulation

Stimulation

Device

SYNCHRONY ABI — Implant with a paddle of electrode contacts laid on the cochlear nucleus of the brainstem

Channels

12 contacts

Regulatory status

CE marked from 12 months of age, according to the company; its page for clinicians mentions no approval in the United States

Main use cases

Hear

Shown in people

Hearing through an implant in routine care; the registry returns 72 studies under the company's name. In September 2026 it launched in Europe a CE-marked implant with every part under the skin, the microphone included.

Still an aim

Approval of that totally implanted system in the United States, where it is not available.

What stands in the way

It writes and does not read: nothing about the listener comes back from the implant.

On record here: 0 peer-reviewed papers

MED-EL is in this directory as a reference point. The cochlear implant is the neural interface that became standard care: routine surgery, reimbursement, decades of follow-up. Every implanted BCI faces questions it has already had to answer, about fitting each user, supporting a device for life and replacing it. It also marks the limit of the comparison: it writes a signal the brain learns to use and reads nothing back.

1. 29 Sep 2026

   Company launches TICI UNICO in Europe with a CE mark: a cochlear implant with no external part. It is not approved in the United States.

   Company reportedMED-EL (press release)

2. 18 Apr 2018

   Company reports a CE mark widened for its auditory brainstem implant: from people aged 15 and over with neurofibromatosis type 2 to people from 12 months of age whose auditory nerve does not work.

   Company reportedMED-EL Professionals Blog

3. 1990

   Ingeborg and Erwin Hochmair hire the company's first staff in Innsbruck. Their multichannel cochlear implant was first implanted in 1977, according to the company.

   Company reportedMED-EL

• CochlearApproved / cleared

  Cochlear

  Maker of the Nucleus cochlear implant, the most widely used kind of neural prosthesis.

• RetinalApproved / cleared

  Science Corporation

  A retinal implant that restores form vision, now commercially available in Europe.

• EEGApproved / cleared

  g.tec medical engineering

  An Austrian maker of complete BCI systems and of the amplifiers much of the field's research is recorded with, in business since 1999.