ONWARD implants its spinal stimulator in the first EIGER patient

ONWARD Medical said on 3 September 2026 that a surgeon had implanted its ARC-IM System in the first participant of EIGER, a clinical feasibility study of targeted spinal cord stimulation after spinal cord injury. The procedure was performed by Jocelyne Bloch, chief of neurosurgery at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois in Lausanne. The implanted system is a pair: the ONWARD Neurostimulator, an implantable pulse generator, and the ARC-IM Lumbar Lead that delivers stimulation to the cord. The company did not disclose the date of the operation itself.

EIGER will enrol up to 12 participants at CHUV and the Schweizer Paraplegiker-Zentrum in Nottwil, across two cohorts the study defines by time since injury: subacute, within six weeks of enrolment, and chronic, more than a year before it. The stated aim is to assess safety and preliminary effectiveness in supporting and promoting recovery of standing and walking.

Two things bound the claim. The device is investigational, and ONWARD’s own release notes that ARC-IM is limited by United States law to investigational use. A feasibility study of twelve people is also not a trial that establishes benefit. The subacute cohort is the unusual part of the design: most targeted spinal stimulation work has enrolled people injured years earlier, so applying it within six weeks of an injury tests a different question from restoring function in one that has long since settled.