Digital therapeutics” vs. “Mental health apps”: A growing debate on standards, regulation and efficacy

The effi­ca­cy of Men­tal Health Apps (phar­mafo­rum): In Jan­u­ary, PLOS Dig­i­tal Health pub­lished a study which claimed that there’s “sparse” data to sup­port the effi­ca­cy of most men­tal health apps. In their meta-ana­ly­­sis of pub­lished stud­ies, the authors found uni­ver­sal defi­cien­cies and con­clud­ed that there’s no con­vinc­ing evi­dence that app-based inter­ven­tions deliv­er mean­ing­ful out­comes. Without…

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A few slow-paced breaths are enough to significantly reduce physiological stress

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, shar­ing impor­tant brain & men­tal health news plus a cou­ple fun brain teasers to test your men­tal self-rota­­tion skills. #1. Study: Edu­ca­tion and lifestyle helped over a mil­lion old­er Amer­i­cans avoid seri­ous cog­ni­tive prob­lems in 2017 Let’s kick­start 2022 with some good news: “The preva­lence of seri­ous cognitive…

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Lyra Health, Big Health and Mantra Health raise a combined $332M to commercialize digital therapeutics for mental/ behavioral health

Lyra Health scores $235M and buys employ­ee assis­tant pro­gram ICAS World (Mobi­Health News): Employ­er-focused dig­i­tal men­tal health provider Lyra Health announced a whop­ping $235 mil­lion Series F round led by Drag­oneer. Sales­force Ven­tures and Coat­ue also par­tic­i­pat­ed. This new infu­sion of cash brings the com­pa­ny’s total raise to over $900 mil­lion. The fund­ing coin­cid­ed with…

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Study: Self-guided sleep app Sleepio, combined with standard care for depression and anxiety, delivers better outcomes than standard care alone

Study backs ben­e­fit of insom­nia DTx Sleepio on men­tal health (pharmapho­rum): The study – pub­lished in the jour­nal Behav­iour Research and Ther­a­py – test­ed the Sleepio app devel­oped by dig­i­tal health spe­cial­ist Big Health as an add-on to stan­dard NHS care for anx­i­ety and depres­sion under the improv­ing access to psy­cho­log­i­cal ther­a­pies (IAPT) pol­i­cy. Patients…

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Startup Big Health raises $39M to universalize access to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety and poor sleep

Big Health Hones Dig­i­tal Men­tal Health Ther­a­py With $39M Series B (Crunch­base): “Start­up Big Health believes indi­vid­u­als can improve their men­tal health through its tech­nol­o­gy that focus­es on cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py ver­sus med­ica­tion or the help of human ther­a­pists. On Thurs­day it raised $39 mil­lion in a Series B financ­ing to advance that objective.

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CVS Health: Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) apps may help you more than sleeping pills

__________ Sleep Ther­a­py for the Mass­es May Be Com­ing to You Soon (The New York Times): “CVS Health wants to help mil­lions of Amer­i­can work­ers improve their sleep. So for the first time, the big phar­ma­cy ben­e­fits man­ag­er is offer­ing a pure­ly dig­i­tal ther­a­py as a pos­si­ble employ­ee ben­e­fit. The com­pa­ny is encour­ag­ing employ­ers to cover…

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