How COMPASS Pathways Is Leveraging AI To Revolutionize The Mental Healthcare Space

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly penetrating a number of different sectors, including healthcare. The use of AI in mental health has opened up the possibility of new avenues of care, potentially allowing for more efficient diagnosis, treatment and patient care. Machine learning algorithms can analyze vast amounts of data – including patient medical records, genetic information and environmental factors – to potentially identify patterns and predict disorders. Clinicians can also benefit from more accurate and timely diagnoses based on objective digital signals.

COMPASS Pathways CMPS is currently developing AI-informed digital systems to assist an investigational treatment for mental health conditions, including treatment-resistant depression (TRD), anorexia nervosa and post–traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The company is best known for its investigational psilocybin treatment and its R&D focus on mental health conditions. Its goal is to develop new and more effective treatment options for individuals with treatment-resistant depression and other difficult-to-treat mental health conditions.

The company’s innovative approach has already yielded promising results, and they received FDA Breakthrough Therapy designation in the U.S. and Innovative Licensing and Access Pathway designation in the U.K. for their investigational COMP360 psilocybin treatment. In late 2021, COMPASS Pathways announced the completion of a randomized, controlled double-blind phase 2b study of COMP360 psilocybin treatment involving 233 patients with TRD in 22 sites across Europe and North America. However, the company believes that drug innovation alone is not enough to improve mental health care.

In addition to COMP360 and to better support the drug, COMPASS Pathways has developed three digital tools to help support patients and therapists to ensure the best possible treatment. While these tools will be used in tandem with the COMP360 treatment, the tools were built to be scalable and revolutionize the treatment of mental health disorders.

Therapist COMPanion is a web-based portal that supports therapists through all phases of patient care. Psilocybin administration is relatively new to providers so Therapist COMPanion acts as a tool for the provider to ensure that treatment is conducted in the right way.

myPathfinder is a patient-facing app that provides guidance throughout COMP360. The psilocybin treatment is grouped into three phases: preparation, administration and integration. COMPASS Pathways was built on the belief that patients deserve better care, especially patients who have been underserved and felt overlooked by the system after being diagnosed as treatment-resistant. This platform is an essential component of taking better care of the patient and ensuring they have the tools to understand their treatment and psilocybin experience.

However, the company’s most expansive digital tool is Chanterelle, an AI and analytics infrastructure that can be used for continuous optimization throughout treatment, as well as data collection to help expand a deeper understanding of treatment-resistant disorders. The program records sessions with the patients, with their consent, and can glean a better understanding of success rates using AI and natural language processing. Chanterelle uses the BART large language model which denotes the valence and arousal of the participant and therapist to assess the emotional tenor of the conversation and to better understand if treatment is succeeding.

Chanterelle’s application could go beyond COMP360 and was designed to be scalable. The company is working to provide a more concrete and evidence-based way of measuring the success of treatment. While COMPASS Pathways is not the only mental healthcare company to bridge the gap between AI and care, the company’s ability to design platforms that can be used for a variety of disorders sets it apart from competitors like MindMed MNMD and Medtronic MDT.

Featured photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash
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