Hello and welcome to Careviser by Marie Loubiere, the weekly newsletter that cuts through the healthcare noise with a single focus: productization of the latest research and tech breakthroughs.
I read this article as I had just received my second shot of the Pfizer vaccine and I felt awful for a few days. In the midst of heavy tiredness and nausea, I couldn’t help but think how lucky I am to have never been infected with covid-19.
How COVID-19 Affects the Brain, Maura Boldrini, MD, PhD; Peter D. Canoll, MD, PhD; Robyn S. Klein, MD, PhD, JAMA Psychiatry,2021;78(6):682-683.doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2021.0500
🗝️ Why it matters: Recent follow-ups show that up to 70% of covid-19 patients experience neuropsychiatric symptoms months after they recovered from the virus.
🔎 The study: At this stage, we are unsure if covid-19 penetrates the brain, and how it may do it. There are several assumptions about how it could invade the brain, but the evidence is lacking at this stage.
✅ Findings: Different types of symptoms are linked to different ways in which covid-19 enters the brain:
Loss of taste (“ageusia”), nausea, and vomiting appear to be linked to circumventricular organs and brain stem viral invasion. Persistent symptoms including anxiety could be linked to the brain stem alone.
Other neuropsychiatric symptoms are said to be caused by neuroinflammation and hypoxic injury
Altered learning, memory, hallucinations, and nightmares found in severe covid-19 patients could be due to the cytokine storm they experience
Depression and suicidal thoughts appear to the caused by increased inflammation in the brain
Autopsy of covid-19 patients shows brain damage that could have been caused by micro strokes and neuronal injuries.
🚀 Opportunities ahead: Learning how to mitigate neuropsychiatric symptoms in covid-19 patients is key for the mental health of a significant portion of the population. It can also open the door for new treatments for other neurodegenerative diseases.
Interventions may involve antagonists of cytokines (etanercept, infliximab), NMDA receptor (ketamine), TNF-α and anti-inflammatory pathways (aspirin, celecoxib), and kynurenine pathway modulators (minocycline).
It is currently estimated that 10% of people infected with covid-19 experience long covid ie., symptoms three months after infection. The UK’s National Institute for Health Research launched last month a £20 million funding call for treatments, services, and diagnostics related to long covid.
While researching long covid startups, I found out that most of them started out targeting another indication, and then launched a covid-19 product.
Launched in 2017 by a team who had previously started digital agency Syzygy, Living With offers a suite of patient remote monitoring mobile apps. They started out with Pelvic Health and then built many other indications including a Covid Recovery app.
🤗 The product: their apps enable providers to track their patient’s progress and compliance with treatment (medication, exercise, diaries…) but also to message them. There is a dedicated web dashboard for clinicians.
📈 The traction: While the team is still small (below 10), their pelvic health app is the top medical paid app in the UK. They have successfully managed to sell their solution to 25 NHS trusts which is impressive in a couple of years. They were with the Digital Health accelerator in London but seem to be self-funded.
Mymee was also launched in 2017 in New York. It offers a single app where patients suffering from auto-immune diseases (e.g., arthritis, lupus, psoriasis…) can monitor their symptoms and receive coaching. They launched their long covid-19 solution a few months ago.
🤗 The solution: Contrary to Living With, Mymee appears to have primarily a B2C go-to-market. Individuals pay US$250 a month to use the app and receive 4 monthly individual coaching sessions. It’s a pretty hefty fee which is justified by the individual coaching sessions. The covid-19 solution is based on the same app.
📈 The traction: On the consumer side, Mymee traction appears limited: they have 18 ratings on the US App Store. They are also distributed through some health plans and employers. They just raised a US$8.7m round probably thanks to the potential of attacking the large covid long haulers market.
Akili Interactive is another player repurposing its offer for covid-19. They got their digital therapeutics for ADHD approved by the FDA and CE-marked last year. They raised US$160 at the beginning of the year. They are now exploring whether it could be useful for brain fog caused by covid-19.
Sano Genetics is a patient enrolment platform for clinical trials focused on DNA research for personalized medicine in the UK. They guide patients through the clinical study process (enrollment and adherence) and send them free DNA sequencing tests. They were founded in 2017 too, and raised a seed round earlier this year. They just launched a clinical study focused on long covid.
That’s a wrap for today! Don’t hesitate to reply to this email with comments, I read and answer all emails :)