“Medical treatment has made astonishing advances over the years. But the packaging and delivery of that treatment are often inefficient, ineffective, and consumer unfriendly.”
That’s what Harvard researchers stated in Why Innovation in Health Care Is So Hard back in 2006.
Many healthcare providers will tell you not much has changed since then.
But today the healthcare sector stands at the forefront of a true digital transformation that will have profound effects on the entire industry.
For example, the McKinsey Global Institute estimates the annual cost savings from healthcare innovations to be between $1.5 trillion and $3 trillion by 2030.
If history is your guide, the trillions of dollars in savings and upheaval of a massive industry represent a big opportunity for investors too.
Zion Market research estimates the Global Digital Health Market Size to grow 15.2% annually through to 2028.
As we’ve seen many other industries transformed by technology, healthcare will be no different than any of those.
One company getting a leg up on the digital transformation of healthcare is Mind Cure Health Inc. (MINDCURE) (CSE:MCUR) (OTC:MCURF).
MINDCURE is the creator of iSTRYM, a proprietary mental health practice management software that enables healthcare providers to deliver innovative and personalized healing solutions to patients.
The company believes iSTRYM has the potential to become the industry's distribution network for science-based, evidence-backed protocols and Artificial Intelligence data systems.
And the technology has made a major step forward recently.
MINDCURE has announced the iSTRYM technology has been certified as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant.
HIPAA compliance certification is the next step for the Company in working towards having the iSTRYM technology platform classified as ‘Software as a Medical Device’ by the FDA.
Kelsey Ramsden, President & CEO of MINDCURE, stated, “Receiving HIPAA compliance is a significant milestone for MINDCURE, which supports our goal of commercially deploying iSTRYM in the second quarter of 2022, as well as generating near-term revenue from the platform. We developed iSTRYM as a drug-agnostic tool that we will be able to scale beyond psychedelics and into other therapeutic fields, which could result in additional revenue opportunities for MINDCURE in the future.”
While iSTRYM is currently focused on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, the software is drug-agnostic, so it can be scaled beyond psychedelics to other therapeutic fields.
It joins other medicinal psychedelic focused companies ATAI Life Sciences (NASDAQ:ATAI), COMPASS Pathways (NASDAQ: CMPS), Mind Medicine (MindMed) (NEO:MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD), and Numinus Wellness (TSXV:NUMI) (OTCQX:NUMIF) who have all made significant developments recently.
Here is a review of their latest moves:
MINDCURE (CSE:MCUR) (OTC:MCURF):
MINDCURE is a life sciences company focused on innovating and commercializing new ways to promote healing and improve mental health.
The company is developing digital therapy technology and researching psychedelic compounds to support access to safe, evidence-based psychedelic-assisted therapies globally.
It has laid out an aggressive growth trajectory with several key events coming up in 2022.
On the research side, just over a year ago MINDCURE announced the initiation of chemical synthesis routes to produce fully synthetic ibogaine.
It applied for patents on two routes to full chemical synthesis and initiated the production of good laboratory practice (GLP) ibogaine leading to the production of good manufacturing practice (GMP) ibogaine in order to scale and manufacture a global supply of fully synthetic ibogaine.
The company recently announced it is currently on schedule and expects to have GLP supply available for research partners in Q2 2022.
On the technology side, MINDCURE has announced it will enter into an agreement with Awakn to be a distributor of its ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for alcohol-use disorder (AUD) protocol in the United States and Canada.
Awakn's protocol will be distributed through iSTRYM, Mind Cure's digital mental health care platform.
News Source: https://www.mindcure.com/news/mindcure-signs-loi-with-awakn-life-sciences-to-distribute-ketamine-protocol-for-alcohol-use-disorder-into-clinics-across-united-states-and-canada-through-istrym-mindcures-digital-therapeutics-platform
ATAI Life Sciences (NASDAQ:ATAI):
ATAI Life Sciences describes itself as “a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company aiming to transform the treatment of mental health disorders.”
ATAI was originally founded in 2018 to address the chronic lack of innovation in the mental health treatment area.
It is targeting the developing therapies that were have been overlooked or underused, including those that involve use pf psychedelic compounds and digital therapeutics.
Recently, ATAI announced the successful outcome of Phase 2a biomarker trial of RL-007 in cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia.
The trial was a 32-patient, single-arm, single-blind study.
Based on analysis of general cognition and episodic memory that demonstrated a clinically meaningful pro-cognitive profile for RL-007.
The trial also showed changes in quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG) that are consistent with previous results of a prior study of healthy volunteers.
The company says these results support its decision to progress RL-007 to a double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2 trial focused on cognition.
Florian Brand, CEO and Co-Founder of atai Life Sciences, said, “The impact of cognitive impairment in schizophrenia can be debilitating and limit the ability of patients to conduct everyday tasks. These Phase 2a results further reinforce our belief in RL-007 to provide benefit in this challenging condition.”
News Source: https://ir.atai.life/news-releases/news-release-details/atai-life-sciences-announces-successful-outcome-phase-2a
COMPASS Pathways (NASDAQ: CMPS):
COMPASS Pathways is a mental health care company dedicated to accelerating patient access to evidence-based innovation in mental health.
The company recently announced the results from its exploratory study of COMP360 psilocybin therapy in conjunction with SSRI use.
The study was a single-arm open label study of 19 patients taking concomitant SSRI therapy with COMP360 psilocybin therapy using a single dose of 25mg.
The patients in the study experienced comparable treatment outcomes to patients in COMPASS’s phase IIb trial where patients were withdrawn from their SSRI prior to COMP360 psilocybin therapy.
Guy Goodwin, COMPASS Pathways’ Chief Medical Officer, stated, “The results of this study challenge the widely-held belief that the use of SSRI medication together with psilocybin could interfere with psilocybin’s therapeutic effect. Our findings provide a strong signal that COMP360 psilocybin therapy could be an adjunctive treatment to SSRI antidepressant as well as a monotherapy. For some patients with treatment-resistant depression, withdrawal is a difficult step even though, by definition, ‘treatment-resistant’ means that those antidepressants are not working. This is exactly why we conduct rigorous research to help guide our clinical trial design - including addressing barriers to adoption of COMP360 therapy. We are now looking forward to meeting with the FDA early in the new year in light of these new data to finalise our plans for the phase III programme, which we expect to begin in Q3 2022.”
COMPASS is now preparing for a meeting with the FDA in early 2022 and this result will be included in that discussion.
COMPASS expects to finalize a phase III program design with the FDA and anticipates commencing that program in Q3 2022.
News Source: https://ir.compasspathways.com/news-releases/news-release-details/compass-pathways-announces-positive-topline-results
Mind Medicine (MindMed) (NEO:MMED) (NASDAQ:MNMD)
MindMed is a clinical-stage psychedelic medicine biotech company focused on discovering, developing, and deploying psychedelic-inspired medicines and therapies to address addiction and mental illness.
The company actively assembled a drug development pipeline of innovative treatments based on psychedelic substances including psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, DMT and an ibogaine derivative, 18-MC.
The company’s latest announcement is another step forward on its goals.
It recently announced it has launched recruitment for a randomized placebo-controlled study evaluating the effects of daytime and evening administration of repeated low doses of LSD.
The study will use digital measurement devices and software to measure the effects of LSD microdoses on neuroplasticity markers such as BDNF plasma levels as well as on various sleep measures, mood, cognitive performance, regulation of emotions, quality of life and immune system response.
The study will be conducted by Dr. Kim Kuypers of Maastricht University, a leading global authority on the use of low-dose psychedelics.
Dr. Kuypers stated, "Research into the practice of taking repeated low doses of psychedelics starts with the basics, looking at whether there is a time of day that influences the impact of these treatments. We are investigating whether the repeated intake of lower doses could lead to realignment of patterns of thinking that would enable individuals to access levels of self-awareness that can provide an enriched experience of life."
News Source: https://mindmed.co/news/press-release/mindmed-launches-study-of-low-dose-lsd-effects-on-sleep-and-cognitive-measures/
Numinus Wellness (TSXV:NUMI) (OTCQX:NUMIF)
Numinus Wellness is a company focused on development and delivery of innovative mental health care and access to safe, evidence-based psychedelic-assisted therapies to help people to heal and be well through the.
The Numinus model includes psychedelic production, research and clinic care.
The company is leading the integration of psychedelic-assisted therapies into mainstream clinical practice and building the foundation for a healthier society.
The company recently announced it has developed novel, proprietary methods for psychedelic mushroom compound screening.
The testing method was developed and validated in-house and will be available as part of Numinus’ service offerings for third party clients.
Sharan Sidhu, Numinus’ science officer and general manager, said, "The testing we've developed and validated at Numinus Bioscience will facilitate the safety and efficacy testing of psychedelics for our products, our clients and strategic partners, and ultimately the industry," says "Working with regulators, we look forward to establishing tools to create a stronger foundation of analytical methods for psychedelic compounds and products."
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