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Cochlear () is a global biotechnology company that designs, manufactures and supplies the Nucleus cochlear implant, the Hybrid electro-acoustic implant and the Baha bone conduction implant.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Cochlear )〕 Based in Sydney, Cochlear was formed in 1981 with finance from the Australian government to commercialise the implants pioneered by Dr Graeme Clark.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Powerhouse Museum )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Cochlear )〕 Today, the company holds over two-thirds of the worldwide hearing implant market,〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Reuters )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=9 News )〕 with more than 250,000 people receiving one of Cochlear's implants since 1982.〔 Cochlear was named Australia's most innovative company in 2002 and 2003,〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Sydney Morning Herald )〕 and one of the world's most innovative companies by Forbes in 2011.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Forbes )〕 == Products == Cochlear produces three implants for different medical situations. Nucleus is a system combining an electrical simulation device that is surgically implanted behind a patient's ear, a processor that captures sounds, and an electrode array that relays the sounds to the brain.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Powerhouse Museum )〕 It is a direct descendant of the original cochlear implants, also known as Nucleus, developed by Dr Graeme Clark in Melbourne during the 1970s.〔 Nucleus was the first cochlear implant to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=American Speech-Language-Hearing Association )〕 The system is upgradable, for example by installing a new sound processor, without surgery.〔 Cochlear's latest processor, Nucleus 6, was launched in 2013 after six years of development.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Herald Sun )〕 In 2013, the Nucleus implant recorded 99% reliability over the last 8 years, more than any similar product.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Cochlear )〕 Hybrid is an electro-acoustic system combining a cochlear implant with an acoustic hearing aid, suitable for patients who have residual hearing at low frequencies.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Powerhouse Museum )〕 The implant of the Hybrid system is a smaller variant of Nucleus, with an electrode that relays only high frequency sounds,〔 while the acoustic component amplifies low frequency sounds and transmits them to the brain through the ordinary nerve pathway.〔 Hybrid was launched in 2008 and won Australian Engineering Excellence and International Design Awards in 2009.〔 Baha (derived from bone anchored hearing aid) is a bone conduction system involving a small titanium implant that is ossointegrated with the bone behind a patient's ear.〔 A sound processor captures sounds, which is passed to the implant and directly transferred to the inner ear through the skull.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=University of Maryland Medical Center )〕 Baha was originally produced by Swedish biotechnology group Entific Medical Systems before that company was acquired by Cochlear in 2005.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Sydney Morning Herald )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cochlear Limited」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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