MyoSwiss
MyoSwiss AG was an ETH Spin-off founded in 2017 by Jaime Duarte and Kai Schmidt. Its flagship product, the Myosuit, was a soft wearable exoskeleton for applications in rehabilitation and physiotherapy and usage in daily life.
The Myosuit was a soft and lightweight exoskeleton that supports people with lower limb muscular weakness. The Myosuit supports the user’s performance, much like an e-bike, when walking, hiking, negotiating stairs, or standing up from a chair.
The idea for the Myosuit developed in 2015 out of the research done at the Sensory-Motor Systems Lab. After an initial round of fundraising MyoSwiss AG was founded. In the same year, the company was announced as a finalist of the spark awards at ETH. In 2018 the first prototype of the Myosuit was completed and successfully passed feasibility testing with physiotherapists and patients. The Myosuit was later available as a CE-marked medical device and was marketed in various countries in Europe.
MyoSwiss proved that research can be translated into a real-world product and received together with ETH and UZH the second prize of the European Robotics Forum "ERF2021 Technology Transfer Award". The unique combination of cutting-edge technology and scientific know-how, coming together in this company, helped people tap their full potential.
During its active years, MyoSwiss AG and the Sensory-Motor Systems Lab enjoyed a strong partnership, collaborating on clinical and scientific projects that evaluated the use of the Myosuit with unimpaired participants and various patient groups. While the lab no longer conducts studies with the device, the foundational work achieved together leaves a lasting, positive impact on the field of wearable robotics.