Otsuka and Virtual Reality start-up Jolly Good sign $43M deal to promote Social Skills Training (SST) therapies, helping schizophrenia patients first

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Jol­ly Good and Tei­jin Phar­ma Form a Part­ner­ship to Devel­op VR Dig­i­tal Ther­a­peu­tics for Depression

Otsu­ka signs on Jol­ly Good for $43M men­tal health VR deal (Fierce Biotech):

The duo will build out software—hosted on Jol­ly Good’s VR gog­gles and con­nect­ed tablet devices, and backed by Otsuka’s exper­tise in devel­op­ing neu­ro­log­i­cal therapeutics—that takes a social skills train­ing (SST) approach to treat­ing men­tal ill­ness. SST is a behav­ioral ther­a­py in which patients with anx­i­ety, mood and per­son­al­i­ty dis­or­ders, among oth­er con­di­tions, are taught on a step-by-step basis how to nav­i­gate spe­cif­ic social interactions.

The com­bi­na­tion of SST and a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal reg­i­men has been proven in stud­ies to reduce the recur­rence of men­tal dis­or­ders, the com­pa­nies said. Their first joint­ly devel­oped pro­gram will be direct­ed toward schiz­o­phre­nia patients, and they’re pre­dict­ing that the immer­sive nature of Jol­ly Good’s VR will make the SST ther­a­py more engag­ing and effec­tive than stan­dard methods.

Under the terms of the deal, Otsu­ka will offer 300 mil­lion Japan­ese yen, or about $2.6 mil­lion, in upfront pay­ments to Jol­ly Good. As the VR pro­gram accel­er­ates, the Tokyo-based phar­ma will reim­burse the tech developer—which is also based in Tokyo—for the costs of devel­op­ment and mar­ket­ing to health­care facil­i­ties, while also dol­ing out roy­al­ties based on sales of the result­ing product.

Alto­geth­er, the total poten­tial val­ue of the deal is 5 bil­lion yen, or about $43.6 mil­lion U.S.

The Announcement:

New Busi­ness Part­ner­ship Between Otsu­ka Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and Dig­i­tal Health VR Tech­nol­o­gy Devel­op­er Jol­ly Good (press release):

With the aim of build­ing a region­al coop­er­a­tive men­tal health plat­form, Jol­ly Good Inc. (Chuo-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Ken­suke Joji) and Otsu­ka Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Co., Ltd. (Chiy­o­da-ku, Tokyo; Pres­i­dent and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Direc­tor: Mako­to Inoue) have signed an agree­ment for exclu­sive prod­uct joint devel­op­ment and sales in Japan for a social skill train­ing VR (“SST VR”) busi­ness … Jol­ly Good has already deployed SST VR for devel­op­men­tal dis­or­ders at over 200 hos­pi­tals, clin­ics, wel­fare sup­port cen­ters, and oth­er such facil­i­ties across Japan.

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