Sanofi Ventures leads $17M investment in Click Therapeutics, finalist @ 2017 Brainnovations Pitch Contest

Sanofi Backs Click Ther­a­peu­tics as Dig­i­tal Med­i­cines Gain Momen­tum (Xcon­o­my): “Drug mak­ers are mak­ing more bets on the nascent field of dig­i­tal med­i­cine. The lat­est exam­ple: Click Ther­a­peu­tics announced Mon­day that it grabbed a $17 mil­lion invest­ment led by Sanofi Ven­tures, the Cam­bridge, MA-based ven­ture cap­i­tal arm of the French phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal giant.

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Lifestyle and neurotechnology over genetics

?” Dear col­league, It’s remark­able how quick­ly things are chang­ing, final­ly, in brain health and men­tal health — see for exam­ple what’s new with Inter­ax­on, Akili, Neu­raMetrix, Apple, Calm, Halo Neu­ro­science, Mind­strong Health, Novar­tis, Pear Ther­a­peu­tics, and life­long neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis, all in the last 6 months! Please enjoy the May edi­tion of Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter below, and con­sid­er join­ing the…

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Reinventing Brain Medicine, Pharma adopts Digital Therapeutics: Evidence-based videogames, smartphone apps, and sensors

___ From app store to drug store, dig­i­tal health is redefin­ing pharma’s pipeline (STAT): “The pitch­es always sound­ed promis­ing: A new soft­ware app could track glu­cose lev­els for peo­ple with dia­betes or soothe the brains of insom­ni­acs. Most phar­ma exec­u­tives would polite­ly smile and nod, but then park their mon­ey some­where else. Not anymore.

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Update: Why monitoring Typing Cadence may help detect early Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Disease

_____ Time for Sharp­Brains’ first eNewslet­ter in 2018, offer­ing a fas­ci­nat­ing sneek peek into the rapid­ly grow­ing toolk­it to mea­sure and improve brain health.  (And don’t miss the fun teas­er at the end!) New think­ing: Brain­no­va­tions Win­ner Jan Samzelius on why mon­i­tor­ing Typ­ing Cadence may help detect ear­ly Parkin­son’s and Alzheimer’s Dis­ease Firms Race to Find…

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Pear Therapeutics raises $50M to develop and market a portfolio of digital therapeutics for mental health

___ Pear Ther­a­peu­tics rakes in $50M to devel­op addi­tion­al dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics (Mobi­Health­News): “Boston- and San Fran­­cis­­co-based Pear Ther­a­peu­tics, mak­er of a pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic plat­form, announced today the clo­sure of $50 mil­lion in Series B fund­ing. The round was led by Sin­­ga­­pore-based invest­ment com­pa­ny Temasek, with par­tic­i­pa­tion from return­ing investors 5AM Ven­tures, Arbore­tum Ven­tures, and…

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FDA clears first CBT-based digital therapeutic to treat substance abuse disorders

__________ The FDA just approved the first app for treat­ing sub­stance abuse (CNBC): “The app, devel­oped by a start-up called Pear Ther­a­peu­tics, is designed to be pre­scribed by clin­i­cian and used along­side coun­sel­ing. Pear’s tech­nol­o­gy dig­i­tizes a form of talk ther­a­py called cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py, or CBT, which focus­es on “exam­in­ing the rela­tion­ships between thoughts,…

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