VR Behavioral Health Platform BehaVR merges with virtual chronic care management company Fern Health to form RealizedCare, a digital care management platform for chronic pain powered by digital therapeutics.
BehaVR has developed digital prescription mental and behavioral health therapies, which include treatments for pain, stress, anxiety and addiction. The Tennessee-based company also uses biometrics and machine learning models in its offerings.
Fern Health is a digital chronic pain management company that provides tailored programs, training, activities and other tools for individuals focused on improving their quality of life and physical function. Programs address the emotional, physical and social aspects of chronic pain.
The companies signed an agreement to merge their businesses, and the new offering will be branded RealizedCare, which will combine digital therapeutics with wraparound virtual services to provide value-based chronic care management.
The partners also announced that research-based pharmaceutical company Grünenthal, the parent company of Fern Health, has partnered with RealizedCare and is a strategic investor in the newly formed company.
“We have spent the last five years building, refining and validating immersive, evidence-based digital therapeutics designed to combat fear and pain,” said Aaron Gani, founder and CEO of BehaVR and CEO of RealizedCare, in a press release. “With this new offering, we will unleash the power of these interventions to expand personalized care to people affected by chronic pain in a way that prioritizes outcomes and provides the integrated support needed to effectively manage these symptoms.” »
THE BIGGEST TREND
In 2021, BehaVR and the Japanese company Sumitomo Pharma has signed a potential $163 million deal to develop virtual reality therapies aimed at treating social anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.
The partnership included a multi-DTx agreement and was one of the largest collaborations between a pharmaceutical company and a virtual reality company in history.
In December last year, the digital therapeutics company announced its merger with a spin-out from the University of Oxford OxfordVR, a VR platform for serious mental health issues. The companies united under the BehaVR brand and raised $13 million in Series B funding to support the merger.
Other extended reality companies providing pain management tools include a California-based virtual reality therapy company. Applied VRwho received last year FDA Clearance of Novo for its EaseVRx system, now RelieVRx, intended for the treatment of chronic lower back pain.
Virtual reality platform based in Boston XRSanté recently plans announcedin collaboration with Nord-Space Aps and HTC Viveto send a VR headset into space for mental health treatment.
Collaborators are designing the Vive Focus 3 headset to withstand space conditions using a simulator mode and specialized tracking methodology through the controllers to ensure the headset can operate effectively in a microgravity environment.
