MED-EL is a privately owned company and is run by its co-founder and CEO Ingeborg Hochmair, a scientist and researcher in the field of hearing implants.

In the mid-1970s, Ingeborg and Erwin Hochmair were research scientists at the Technical University of Vienna, working on the development of cochlear implants.

[3] In 1979, a modified version of that implant enabled a female patient to understand words and sentences without lip-reading via a small, body-worn sound processor used in a quiet environment.

As Erwin Hochmair had been awarded a professorship at the University of Innsbruck,[4] they decided to found the company in the city and hired their first three employees in 1990.

[6] Instead of being attached to the body, this audio processor was worn behind the ear in the same way as a conventional hearing aid.

[7] In 2003, the company acquired the Vibrant Soundbridge, a new type of active middle ear implant pioneered by American inventor Geoffrey Ball.

[6] MED-EL operates in over 100 countries worldwide including Europe, America, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.

A collaboration with Swiss company CAScination helped to develop Hearo, a surgical robot designed to assist with cochlear implantation.

[25] MED-EL is developing the Dexel electrode array, which emits controlled doses of the drug dexamethasone into the cochlea to improve healing after implantation.

[26] The first six patients were implanted with the Dexel at the Hannover Medical School in Germany as part of a clinical trial in 2020.

In 2020, MED-EL and the Paracelsus Medical University Salzburg announced a joint research agreement for the clinical testing of human umbilical cord cell-derived extracellular vesicles.