Pear Therapeutics raises $175M and goes public via SPAC deal raising the profile of prescription digital therapeutics

Dig­i­tal health firm Pear goes pub­lic, rais­ing $175 mil­lion (phar­mafo­rum):

Pear will make its debut on the exchange today after com­bin­ing with Thim­ble Point – a spe­cial pur­pose acqui­si­tion com­pa­ny (SPAC) – in a deal that side­stepped the con­ven­tion­al ini­tial pub­lic offer­ing (IPO) route and has pro­pelled its val­u­a­tion to around $1.6 bil­lion … Pear spe­cialis­es in pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics (DTx) based on cog­ni­tive behav­iour­al ther­a­py (CBT) tech­niques that can deliv­ered remote­ly to [patients via a dig­i­tal device. It has three apps approved by the FDA, includ­ing reSET and reSET‑O for peo­ple liv­ing with sub­stance and opi­oid use dis­or­ders, respec­tive­ly, and a tool for chron­ic insom­ni­acs called Somryst.

The com­pa­ny has pre­dict­ed it will make around $4 mil­lion in rev­enues from its DTx port­fo­lio in full-year 2021.

Last month, Pear report­ed progress with its lat­est prod­uct – a DTx for alco­hol use dis­or­der (AUD) called reSET‑A – claim­ing break­through sta­tus from the FDA for the app. It aims to over­come a des­per­ate lack of treat­ments for a con­di­tion esti­mat­ed to affect around 14 mil­lion adults in the US, caus­ing around 95,000 fatal­i­ties every year.

The Announcement:

Pear Ther­a­peu­tics and Thim­ble Point Announce Clos­ing of Busi­ness Com­bi­na­tion to Cre­ate Pub­licly Trad­ed Pre­scrip­tion Dig­i­tal Ther­a­peu­tics Com­pa­ny (press release):

Pear Ther­a­peu­tics, Inc. (“Pear Ther­a­peu­tics”), the leader in devel­op­ing and com­mer­cial­iz­ing soft­ware-based med­i­cines, called pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics (PDTs), announced today the com­ple­tion of its busi­ness com­bi­na­tion with Thim­ble Point Acqui­si­tion Corp. (“Thim­ble Point”) (Nas­daq: THMA), a spe­cial pur­pose acqui­si­tion com­pa­ny (“SPAC”). The pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­ny will be known as Pear Ther­a­peu­tics, Inc. and will com­mence trad­ing on Nas­daq under the tick­er sym­bol “PEAR” on Decem­ber 6, 2021…

“My Pear­mates and I are proud to con­tin­ue our lead­er­ship in the cre­ation of pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics,” said Corey McCann, M.D., Ph.D., Pear’s Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer. “As a pub­lic com­pa­ny, we aim to accel­er­ate our vision to increase access to PDTs by fur­ther com­mer­cial­iz­ing our three FDA-autho­rized PDTs, expand­ing pub­lic and pri­vate pay­er adop­tion, and advanc­ing our pipeline of PDTs. Thanks to all of our investors for sup­port­ing our suc­cess­ful transition.”

News in Context:

• Pear Ther­a­peu­tics Pro­vides 2021 Busi­ness Update and Reaf­firms Full Year 2021 Rev­enue Guidance
• Pre­scrip­tion soft­ware firm Pear Ther­a­peu­tics to go pub­lic via $1.6 bil­lion SPAC deal, har­ness­ing 3 FDA-autho­rized prod­ucts and 14 candidates
• Ohio joins Indi­ana and Ken­tucky in fund­ing Pear Ther­a­peu­tics’ dig­i­tal addic­tion treatments
• Five rea­sons the future of brain enhance­ment is dig­i­tal, per­va­sive and (hope­ful­ly) bright