Beyond the clinic: Can digital therapeutics (DTx) help boost mental health in the workforce at scale?

Hop­ing to Avoid Pear’s Fate, Behav­ioral Health-Focused DTx Com­pa­nies Look to Employ­er Mar­ket (Behav­ioral Health Business):

The dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics (DTx) indus­try is at a cross­roads after one of the most promi­nent com­pa­nies in the space, Pear Ther­a­peu­tics, filed for bank­rupt­cy ear­li­er this year. The tur­moil comes after DTx began catch­ing on in the behav­ioral health field.

Despite Pear’s set­back, some believe there’s now a chance for oth­er dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics com­pa­nies to learn from their competitor’s mis­takes and pave the way for DTx. One of the most chal­leng­ing ques­tions for the bur­geon­ing sec­tor remains pay­ment strategy.

… While some dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics have FDA clear­ance, there is a move­ment away from get­ting these prod­ucts cov­ered like a phar­ma­cy ben­e­fit. Instead, many com­pa­nies are look­ing to make deals with the employ­er market.

“The employ­er route … has been incred­i­bly suc­cess­ful and is an excit­ing path­way in an era where the work­force is chang­ing their demands and expec­ta­tions of their employ­er,” Gold­sack (Jen­nifer Gold­sack, CEO of the Dig­i­tal Med­i­cine Soci­ety) said.

Going to the employ­er mar­ket also helps boost adop­tion, accord­ing to Was­den (Chris Was­den, chief strat­e­gy offi­cer at Twill), because employ­ers are moti­vat­ed to pro­mote the products.

News in Context:

• Pear Ther­a­peu­tics los­es 97% of its mar­ket cap­i­tal­iza­tion since 2021, explores strate­gic alternatives
• Employ­er-focused med­i­ta­tion pro­gram eMind­ful acquired by dig­i­tal behav­ioral change firm Won­dr Health
• Calm rais­es $75 mil­lion, expands into cor­po­rate men­tal health and wellness
• Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) meets Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py (CBT): Wysa rais­es $20M to scale up men­tal health chatbot