Simbex Press Release

A new technology, called the HEAD IMPACT TELEMETRY System™, which measures the severity of head impacts during play receives its first test at Virginia Tech.

Lebanon, NH - September 8, 2003 - Simbex LLC announced today that its HIT System™ project is entering an important next step of testing at Virginia Tech. The HIT System™ monitors and records the severity and incidence of impacts taken by an athlete during contact sports, such as football and hockey. The miniature impact monitor is worn inside protective equipment (padding, helmets, etc.), where accelerometers and state-of-the-art telemetry can provide vital, real-time, hit-by-hit data.

Simbex, the Lebanon, NH research and product development company, delivered the system to a Virginia Tech team, led by Stefan Duma, PhD Ð Director of the Center of Injury Biomechanics and Gunnar Brolinson, DO Ð Head Team Physician. The Virginia Tech team is composed of biomechanical engineers from the College of Engineering, medical and training staff from the athletic department sports medicine group, and physicians from the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine. This begins the first series of tests in actual game and practice situations in a Division I NCAA football environment. "What is exciting about this project is the biomechanical data and insight we will gain concerning head impacts that occur on every play as a natural part of this game,Ó said Dr. Duma. ÒFor the first time, we will be able to measure player impacts during practices and game situations and compare impacts by player position and other variables," he continued. They will begin fitting the devices to athletes, testing the system performance and collecting impact data.

The project is supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health and is a collaboration of a number of research institutes, companies and organizations coordinated by Simbex. The HIT System™ may play a larger role in the halls of research than on the football field. "Field data collection will lead to greater understanding of the biomechanics of head impacts and mild traumatic brain injuries, and pilot studies like this are essential prior to large scale data collection," said J.J. Trey Crisco, Ph.D., the Director of the Bioengineering Laboratory, Department of Orthopaedics, Brown Medical School, and co-developer of the HIT System algorithm and co-investigator on the field data research team.

"This marks an important step in the development of the HIT System," according to Richard M. Greenwald, PhD, President of Simbex. "The next step is neuropsychological correlation studies piloted by Ruben Echemendia, the Director of the Penn State Concussion Program. We have been extremely fortunate to have such extraordinary research and development teams as Analog Devices, Inc., Brown Medical School, Microprocessor Designs, National Institutes of Health, Penn State University, Southern Impact Research Center and Virginia Tech at each step of the projectÕs development."

The subject of head injuries and football has come to greater public attention after franchise players Steve Young and Troy Aikman were forced to retire due to their histories of head injuries. Experts expect a rising occurrence of head injuries in football since the speed of the players and the violence of the impacts continue to increase.

About Simbex LLC
Simbex is a research and product development company whose core expertise is biomechanical feedback systems. The goal of the company is to create marketable products and solutions for active life improvement in the areas of prosthetics, sports injury prevention and rehabilitation. The founders are internationally recognized experts in their fields and have decades of experience in the area of functional evaluation and efficacy assessment of complex biomechanical systems for the sporting goods, orthopedic and exercise equipment industries. The research branch of the Company is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.