Digital Therapeutics And The Future Of Psychedelic Medicine

Digital health and therapeutics will play a crucial role in the future of medicine. Across medical and mental health industries, companies are realizing that the confluence of healthcare and digital platforms will be part of the future of medicine.

Digital therapeutics seem to be especially important in the burgeoning psychedelic medicine industry. The future of psychedelics will be more than simply taking FDA-approved medication, as such potent compounds call for a more holistic and experiential approach to therapy. Therefore digital platforms will likely play a key role in developing this fast-growing sector.

Here are some companies positioning themselves as digital leaders in the growing psychedelic medicine space.

Entheo Digital: Psychedelic Therapy with Immersive Virtual Experiences

Entheo Digital is a digital therapeutics company pursuing the creation of a wellness technology marketplace at the intersection of psychedelic therapy and experiential medicine. The company’s goal is to grow the accessibility and scalability of psychedelic therapy with immersive virtual experiences.

“Entheo was founded to distribute digital therapeutics for psychedelic therapies, specifically for immersive, experiential digital experiences that can be used as tools for psychedelic therapists and patients” says co-founder and CEO Robin Arnott.

SoundSelf is Entheos' featured product. In development for many years it uses sound and visuals to give people access to psychedelic-like states. The VR experience accomplishes this with a unique vocal feedback system. Using singing, chanting, or toning, there is then dynamic music and visualizations that respond to everything the user does with their voice. 

“It can move users to unitive states of consciousness within 10-15 minutes. The default mode network goes quiet and there’s similar brainwave patterns to someone in a deep psychedelic drug experience or deep meditative state”, says Arnott. 

SoundSelf has several potential uses. On the patient side, it can help better prepare patients for therapy, thus increasing chances of better outcomes and the likelihood of continued use of psychedelic therapy. 

“Let's say a patient is going in for their first psychedelic journey. There could be anxiety and trepidation about such a potentially intense experience. Being able to give patients a taste of a similar state of consciousness that psychedelics will provide, can help relieve some of the anxiety and improve positive outcomes.”

There is also substantial potential on the therapists side: “One of the big issues in the growth of psychedelic therapy is the trained therapist bottleneck. This is a place where an effective digital therapeutic that can actually render an altered state of consciousness can lighten the burden on therapist training. 

If the development of SoundSelf delivers on its promise, Entheo could have on its hands a potentially disrupting and sought-after digital tool. 

MindCure: Building an Integrated Digital Tool to Optimize Treatments

MindCure (OTC: MCURF) MCUR has a broad development plan, with molecule research and development; digital therapeutics that provides data-driven support during therapy and optimizes therapeutic outcomes; a line of wellness products; and its minority purchase of ATMA Journey Centers, Canada’s first commercial provider of legal psilocybin-assisted therapy.

The company has also completed the first stage of manufacturing pharmaceutical-grade ibogaine to be used in clinical research. With this manufacturing of synthetic ibogaine, MINDCURE’s research team will have access to consistent high-quality supply, and create opportunities for synthetic ibogaine to be used by other researchers conducting clinical trials and, in the future, by clinicians providing psychedelic therapy.

For digital therapeutics, MINDCURE’s iSTRYM technology is an innovative software application built to optimize the healing journey for both patients and clinicians. It’s used before, during, and after therapy sessions, and combines a variety of healing solutions like user dashboards, guided mindfulness practices, and intelligent data analysis. 

iSTRYM aims to give real-world data in real-time, helping from therapy preparation, to in-session support, and post-session resources for both clinicians and clients. There’s also data capture, data analysis, and a therapy protocol library. 

MINDCURE has recently entered into a partnership with Speak Ai, a tech company that analyzes media, language, and metadata to auto-generate valuable insights through machine learning. As MINDCURE CEO and President Kelsey Ramsden said after the announcement:. "We will be building custom integrations with Speak Ai for the iSTRYM platform that allow us to marry sentiment with biometric data, location, weather, and a variety of other variables to help optimize our integration protocols and provide individuals with quantified care at scale globally, all with the stated goal of advancing Mental Wealth, rooted in data."

MindMed: Interating Digital Therapeutics to an Impressive Pipeline

Industry leader and investor favorite Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc MNMD has been slowly building its digital presence. Aware of the role digital therapeutics will play in the successful delivery of treatments, MIndMed launched its Albert division in late 2020. 

As described by MindMed co-founder JR Rahn in the company’s press release: “We believe that the next frontier in psychedelic medicine will be to quantify with great precision psychedelic-assisted therapy’s impact on patient populations. This new division will not only build apps, technologies and other platforms to help the patient, but hopefully also make the medical community comfortable with this novel treatment paradigm for mental health and addiction by measuring the potential value to their patient populations and ultimate savings to insurers.”

The Albert division is building a team of technologists, therapists, and drug development experts to build an integrated digital platform. Here are some recent developments. 

In February 2021, MindMed acquired HealthMode, a digital therapeutics firm focused on AI-enabled measurements to optimize clinical research and patient monitoring. MindMed will gain access to HealthMode's IP portfolio, platforms for clinical drug trials, and its team of over 20 digital medicine experts. MindMed will incorporate all these pieces into its digital medicine division. 

MindMed has also partnered with BioXcel Therapeutics for an International Patent Application. This patent is for a system to identify “agitation episodes”, and will be used for detecting and preventing the early onset of this condition. The MindMed-BioXcel collaboration and this patent application seek to “measure signs of an impending agitation event, alert caregivers, and identify optimal treatments.”

From Dr. Daniel R. Karlin, MindMed's Chief Medical Officer: "This project serves as an example of the kind of impact that can be achieved at the cross-section of digital medicine, applied machine learning, and traditional development of pharmaceutical compounds. The early detection of any clinically important symptom can bring significant value to patients across a range of conditions."

Digital Therapeutics Will Play Key Role in Delivery At Scale

Getting psychedelic drugs approved by the FDA is just the first step of commercialization. You then need to get the treatments out to people at scale, which will require therapists and therapeutic settings (unlike traditional mental health medications, psychedelics generally require an experiential or therapeutic environment and treatment plan). 

All of this can be extremely costly, and thus restrictive to some clients, so integrated tech like these will be crucial in developing models that allow easier access to the forthcoming psychedelic drug therapies.

Gathering data, delivering therapies, training therapists, and giving patients better access – companies that can successfully roll-out these digital therapeutics will not only help the industry deliver at scale but will also have a valuable product on their hands. 

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