pharma

Update: A life of cognitive and physical exercise helps you stay sharp in your 70s and beyond

by

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 13 fas­ci­nat­ing brain research find­ings, use­ful resources–and a brain teas­er to test your atten­tion skills.

#1. Good news of the month: Elders today are in sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter shape–physically and cognitively–than three decades ago

#2. A dis­tinc­tion WITH a dif­fer­ence: Actu­al, sus­tained practice–not mere knowledge–is need­ed to har­ness neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and improve cog­ni­tion over time

#3. “Be mind­ful that with the rapid changes we are expe­ri­enc­ing, our brains are going through accel­er­at­ed learn­ing. Our brains get tired just as our bod­ies would if we ran a marathon with­out train­ing.” How COVID-relat­ed stress can dis­rupt your brain cir­cuits and nine tips to pre­vent it

#4. Yes, Yes, and Yes. To har­ness our best selves, “Tem­per your empa­thy, train your com­pas­sion, and avoid the news”

#5. Things start ear­ly. Marsh­mal­low Test with a twist: 3- and 4‑year-olds kids dis­play more self-con­trol when their rep­u­ta­tion is at stake

#6. Which is why we look for­ward to see­ing 9,000+ stu­dents, plus their many teach­ers and admin­is­tra­tors, fur­ther devel­op their unique brains and minds in years ahead: Help­ing shape the future of life­long learn­ing via SEK Edu­ca­tion Group

#7. “… it would cer­tain­ly be pre­ma­ture to sug­gest that mov­ing to a high alti­tude state would improve a child’s ADHD symp­toms. How­ev­er, the find­ings high­light the val­ue of keep­ing an open mind in efforts to under­stand the devel­op­ment of ADHD and the role nat­ur­al envi­ron­ments may play in poten­tial­ly alle­vi­at­ing it.” Study finds sur­pris­ing cor­re­la­tion between states’ ele­va­tion and ADHD prevalence

#9. Time to start pay­ing seri­ous atten­tion to the brain/ cog­ni­tive side effects of com­mon med­ica­tions. Anti­cholin­er­gic drugs found to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase risk of cog­ni­tive decline, espe­cial­ly among those with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease bio­mark­ers or genet­ic predisposition

#10. Fas­ci­nat­ing: “After a 14-day train­ing peri­od … visu­ospa­tial skills improved by 40%. This increase in visu­ospa­tial abil­i­ty was shown to be direct­ly respon­si­ble for a reduc­tion in motion sick­ness by 51% in the sim­u­la­tor … and a 58% reduc­tion in the on-road tri­al.” Study: Self-dri­ving cars will increase motion sickness…unless we retrain our brains to improve visu­ospa­tial skills

#11. Behav­ioral health and neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty meet big phar­ma to hope­ful­ly address a huge need. Click Ther­a­peu­tics and Boehringer Ingel­heim part­ner to devel­op and mar­ket a dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic to treat schizophrenia

#12. Neu­ralink: Thumbs up or down?

#13. Brain teas­er: Did you notice the numer­i­cal error as it hap­pened? If not, feel free to go back and find it now 🙂

 

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy October,

 

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and the Sharp­Brains Team

Click Therapeutics and Boehringer Ingelheim partner to develop and market a digital therapeutic to treat schizophrenia

by

Boehringer Ingel­heim, Click Ther­a­peu­tics ink $500M+ dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics devel­op­ment, com­mer­cial­iza­tion deal (Mobi­Health­News):

Inter­na­tion­al phar­ma Boehringer Ingel­heim and pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics com­pa­ny Click Ther­a­peu­tics have inked a $500 mil­lion-plus deal to joint­ly devel­op and com­mer­cial­ize a dig­i­tal treat­ment for patients with schiz­o­phre­nia. [Read more…] about Click Ther­a­peu­tics and Boehringer Ingel­heim part­ner to devel­op and mar­ket a dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic to treat schizophrenia

Novartis dissolves agreement to market Pear Therapeutics’ prescription digital therapeutics for substance/ opioid abuse

by

_______________

As San­doz returns mar­ket­ing rights for dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics to Pear, what does it mean for co-pro­mote arrange­ments? (MM&M):

“San­doz, the gener­ics divi­sion of Novar­tis, is alter­ing com­mer­cial course, return­ing mar­ket­ing duties for two pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics (DTx) back to Pear Ther­a­peu­tics. The move, which some had antic­i­pat­ed, comes 18 months after the two signed a co-pro­mo­tion deal.

Since the Sandoz/Pear pact was wide­ly seen as a lit­mus test of sorts for pharma’s role in help­ing dis­trib­ute this nascent tech­nol­o­gy, the com­mer­cial break-up rais­es ques­tions about the via­bil­i­ty of such part­ner­ships going for­ward. It also high­lights the par­ties’ some­times con­flict­ing pri­or­i­ties: [Read more…] about Novar­tis dis­solves agree­ment to mar­ket Pear Ther­a­peu­tics’ pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics for substance/ opi­oid abuse

Update: Trained older brains can outperform untrained younger ones at demanding cognitive tasks

by

_______________

Time for Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing the lat­est research, tools and think­ing for life­long brain health and men­tal well-being — and a cou­ple fun brain teasers 🙂

New brain research:

New neurotech and digital health:

New thinking on brain and mind:

And a couple fun brain teasers:

 

Have a great month of September,

 

The Sharp­Brains Team

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

by

___

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. [Read more…] about Rein­vent­ing Brain Med­i­cine, Phar­ma adopts Dig­i­tal Ther­a­peu­tics: Evi­dence-based videogames, smart­phone apps, and sensors

Trend: Taking health (and brain health) care “beyond the pill”

by

Medical touchscreen

.

How Device Mak­ers Can Take Health­care “Beyond the Pill” (Med­ical Device and Diag­nos­tic Industry):

“One thing is clear: Pharma’s com­mit­ment to “beyond the pill” has nev­er been so apparent.

Each and every phar­ma com­pa­ny seems to have formed a divi­sion or a strate­gic team to explore new ser­vices around patient com­pli­ance, pop­u­la­tion health data and fur­ther­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty for improv­ing patient man­age­ment… [Read more…] about Trend: Tak­ing health (and brain health) care “beyond the pill”