Blue Note Therapeutics raises $26M to help treat cancer-related distress via cognitive behavioral stress management (CBSM)

Blue Note Ther­a­peu­tics Rais­es $26.25 Mil­lion in Series A Financ­ing (press release):

Blue Note Ther­a­peu­tics, Inc., today announced the clos­ing of a Series A financ­ing round of $26.25 mil­lion. Pro­ceeds will allow the com­pa­ny to scale the orga­ni­za­tion and fund near-term clin­i­cal tri­als of its lead pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic (PDT), which will poten­tial­ly improve the treat­ment of can­cer. The cap­i­tal will also sup­port the devel­op­ment of Blue Note’s pipeline assets. The Series A financ­ing was led by JAZZ Ven­ture Part­ners and joined by Sum­mer VC.

Blue Note Ther­a­peu­tics is ded­i­cat­ed to serv­ing patients suf­fer­ing from can­cer-relat­ed dis­tress. Work­ing close­ly with lead­ing can­cer research cen­ters and patient com­mu­ni­ties, Blue Note is devel­op­ing clin­i­cal­ly val­i­dat­ed med­ical devices designed to improve over­all can­cer out­comes. These prod­ucts will help address the spe­cif­ic psy­choso­cial needs of oncol­o­gy patients and may reduce comor­bidi­ties such as anx­i­ety, depres­sion, and fear of can­cer recurrence…In 2020, Blue Note launched COVID Can­cer Care, a dig­i­tal well­ness pro­gram intend­ed to help adults with can­cer cope with stress and anx­i­ety relat­ed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

News in Context:

About Can­cer-Relat­ed Dis­tress:

There are about 18 mil­lion can­cer patients and sur­vivors in the Unit­ed States today. Near­ly half of all can­cer patients expe­ri­ence psy­choso­cial dis­tress, anx­i­ety, or depression.

If left untreat­ed, these feel­ings can low­er a can­cer sur­vivors’ qual­i­ty of life and may neg­a­tive­ly affect sur­vival. The Nation­al Com­pre­hen­sive Can­cer Net­work (NCCN) has pro­posed guide­lines for the deliv­ery of men­tal health care ser­vices in oncol­o­gy, which include screen­ing patients for signs of dis­tress and imple­ment­ing a treat­ment plan to address these needs with a men­tal health care specialist.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, few­er than half of patients who expe­ri­ence can­cer-relat­ed dis­tress are referred to men­tal health care spe­cial­ists. Pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics that help to treat can­cer-relat­ed dis­tress have the poten­tial to help close this can­cer treat­ment gap. These may incor­po­rate cog­ni­tive behav­ioral stress man­age­ment (CBSM), which has been tai­lored to can­cer patients and shown in numer­ous clin­i­cal stud­ies to improve emo­tion­al well-being, phys­i­cal health, and over­all survival

On the neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy of stress:

• Explor­ing the human brain and how it responds to stress (1/3)
• On World Health Day 2020, let’s dis­cuss the stress response and the Gen­er­al Adap­ta­tion Syn­drome (2/3)
• The frontal lobes, the lit­tle brain down under and “Stayin’ Alive” (3/3)