Alphabet

Innovation in COVID times: Otsuka and Click Therapeutics announce fully virtual clinical trial, leveraging Verily’s Project Baseline

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Otsu­ka launch­es piv­otal tri­al of dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics for depres­sion (Med­C­i­ty News):

Otsu­ka Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal is launch­ing a vir­tu­al study to see if dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics can reduce depres­sion symptoms.

It’s the next step in a part­ner­ship between the Tokyo-based drug­mak­er and Click Ther­a­peu­tics, a dig­i­tal health start­up that is devel­op­ing pro­grams for smok­ing ces­sa­tion, depres­sion and insom­nia. [Read more…] about Inno­va­tion in COVID times: Otsu­ka and Click Ther­a­peu­tics announce ful­ly vir­tu­al clin­i­cal tri­al, lever­ag­ing Verily’s Project Baseline

Alphabet’s X shares Amber EEG system to expand the quest for mental health biomarkers

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Amber’s final EEG pro­to­type: Head­set, sen­sor strip and bioamp

Alphabet’s X details Project Amber, a quest for a sin­gle bio­mark­er for depres­sion that fell short of its goal (TechCrunch):

Alphabet’s X (the Google-owner’s so-called “Moon­shot Fac­to­ry”) pub­lished a new blog post today about Project Amber, a project it’s been work­ing on over the past three years — the results of which it’s now mak­ing avail­able open source for the rest of the men­tal health research com­mu­ni­ty to learn from, and hope­ful­ly build upon. [Read more…] about Alphabet’s X shares Amber EEG sys­tem to expand the quest for men­tal health biomarkers

Verily and LivaNova accelerate efforts to detect and treat depression

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Heads-up about a cou­ple fas­ci­nat­ing devel­op­ments over the last few weeks.

1) Verily’s Bold New Project Aims to Pre­dict Depres­sion Using Your Phone (Sin­gu­lar­i­ty­Hub):

“Depres­sion is a shift­ing, amor­phous beast that silent­ly haunts mil­lions. It’s also dif­fi­cult to pinpoint.

Psy­chi­a­try has for­mu­lat­ed well-test­ed ques­tion­naires to diag­nose depres­sion. But these tests require patients to reach out and only pro­vide snap­shots of their dis­or­der in time [Read more…] about Ver­i­ly and LivaNo­va accel­er­ate efforts to detect and treat depression

Required: Deep partnerships between industry and academia to upgrade healthcare and biomedical research via Big Data

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Join the dis­rup­tors of health sci­ence (Nature):

Thomas R. Insel’s biggest les­son from his shift from NIMH direc­tor to Sil­i­con Val­ley entre­pre­neur: aca­d­e­m­ic and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny researchers should part­ner up.

“In ear­ly 2015, I tes­ti­fied with sev­er­al oth­er Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health (NIH) direc­tors at an annu­al hear­ing held by the US Sen­ate. It was my 13th and final year as direc­tor of the US Nation­al Insti­tute of Men­tal Health (NIMH) in Bethes­da, Mary­land. What struck me most was how [Read more…] about Required: Deep part­ner­ships between indus­try and acad­e­mia to upgrade health­care and bio­med­ical research via Big Data

Google gets serious about brain & mental health innovation and hires NIMH Director Tom Insel

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thomas-insel

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NIH Director’s State­ment Regard­ing Dr. Thomas Insel’s Depar­ture:

“After serv­ing 13 years as Direc­tor for the Nation­al Insti­tute of Men­tal Health (NIMH), Thomas R. Insel, M.D., will step down effec­tive Novem­ber 1, 2015…he is def­i­nite­ly not retir­ing. He is plan­ning to join the Google Life Sci­ences [Read more…] about Google gets seri­ous about brain & men­tal health inno­va­tion and hires NIMH Direc­tor Tom Insel