Blue Note Therapeutics, a prescription digital therapeutics company singularly dedicated to serving patients experiencing cancer, today announced a new collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) to help advance the development of the company’s prescription digital therapeutic (PDT) candidate to treat fear of cancer recurrence.
“We are excited for this opportunity to further our partnership with MSK,” said Geoffrey Eich, CEO of Blue Note Therapeutics. “This new collaboration will give Blue Note access to leading cancer experts to advise and inform the development of our therapeutic, increasing our capacity to reach patients.”
The collaborators will come together under MSK’s Innovation Hub, a program that blends health tech innovators and MSK experts with the goal to speed the development of innovative products and businesses that have the potential to make a meaningful impact in the lives of people with cancer and their caregivers.
“Nearly all cancer patients face fear and uncertainty following their treatment, and for some, such fear can be distressing, preoccupying, and debilitating,” said Wendy Lichtenthal, PhD, Attending Psychologist at MSK. “This can impact their mental and physical health, experience with medical care, and quality of life. We look forward to collaborating with Blue Note on this important project to help patients cope with their fears of recurrence.”
Blue Note holds licensing agreements with several leading cancer centers and universities, including MSK, the University of Miami, and Massachusetts General Hospital, to digitize evidence-based, cancer-specific therapies.
To date, Blue Note has raised a total of $31 million in Series A financing, allowing the company to scale the organization and fund a pipeline of evidence-based therapeutics to serve an increasing number of cancer patients.
There are about 18 million cancer patients and survivors in the United States today.1 Nearly half of all cancer patients experience psychosocial distress, anxiety, or depression.2 If left untreated, these feelings can lower a cancer survivor’s quality of life and may negatively affect survival.3 The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has established guidelines for the delivery of mental health care services in oncology, which include screening patients for signs of distress and implementing a treatment plan to address these needs with a mental health care specialist.4 Unfortunately, fewer than half of patients who experience cancer-related distress, which can be defined as any unpleasant feeling, emotion, or experience that affects a patient’s quality of life or ability to cope with cancer diagnosis and treatment, are referred to mental health care specialists.5,6 Prescription digital therapeutics designed to treat cancer-related distress can help close this cancer treatment gap.
Source: Company Press Release
