Elon Musk’s Neuralink is hiring a clinical trial director as it moves towards testing chip implants in humans

• Elon Musk said in December Neuralink hopes to start implanting its brain chips in humans this year.
• The company’s hiring of a clinical director is a sign that it’s moving toward human trials.
• The technology is aimed at helping people with paralysis control devices with their brains.

Elon Musk’s Neuralink is hiring a clinical trial director — a sign that the brain-interface technology is moving toward implanting chips in humans.

According to the job ad, the clinical director will be working with the startup’s “first Clinical Trial participants!”

Job requirements include understanding the clinical trial process from beginning to end and managing communication with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA.)

The ad for the Fremont, California-based job also says the position offers “an opportunity to change the world and work with some of the smartest and the most talented experts from different fields.”

Medical device makers generally employ clinical directors just as they start interacting with the FDA so that they can design trials that have better chances of approval, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news.

Neuralink co-founder and CEO Musk said at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit last month that the startup hopes to begin implanting microchips in humans this year, pending FDA approval. 

Musk tweeted in April last year the “first @Neuralink product will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs.”

He said at the WSJ summit that the company’s “standards for implanting the device are substantially higher than what the FDA requires.”

“Progress will accelerate when we have devices in humans (hard to have nuanced conversations with monkeys) next year,” he tweeted on December 7.

Neuralink did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Last April, Neuralink released a video of a monkey playing a video game using chips implanted in its brain. 

Musk said in February last year that Neuralink could start implanting chips in humans by the end of 2021. The year before, the company said it hoped to start trials by end-2020, according to The Verge, citing a presentation by Musk.