36 Krypton learned that the mental health digital therapy company “Wangli Technology” has recently completed a 100 million-level financing, led by Morningside Venture Capital, followed by Zhongxin Capital, and the old shareholders Changling Capital and Boyuan Capital continued to raise funds. Taihe Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor for this financing.
With the “cognitive intelligence AI algorithm platform” as the core, Wangli Technology is expanding the diagnosis and digital intervention of addiction, depression, sleep disorders, PTSD and other indications. At present, Wangli Technology’s treatment software for “cognitive dysfunction” has obtained the second-class medical device registration certificate, and is currently in the preparation stage for admission to the hospital; other pipeline products are also advancing preclinical research or clinical trials.
At this stage, about 80% of the Wangli Technology team are R&D personnel, including professionals in AI algorithms, cognitive behavior, medicine, and psychology; the rest are marketing teams.
Initially, Wangli Technology chose “addiction” as a broad category of indications for research, including indications such as alcohol dependence and drug addiction. “Because addiction is a disease with very clear independent variables and dependent variables, and the X and Y variables are very clear in the causal relationship.” Li Dai introduced to 36 Krypton. Mental diseases often build basic models from the perspective of addiction And technology platform, the core lies in the reward mechanism.
Photo courtesy of the enterprise
In the field of pharmaceuticals, finding biomarkers to distinguish populations is a key link, but due to the complexity of the brain, it is difficult to find suitable biomarkers for screening of central nervous and mental diseases. Therefore, digital therapy companies try to use behavioral signals and EEG signals as digital markers to distinguish whether patients are suffering from diseases. “Essentially, we don’t find a marker biologically to distinguish people; we find markers digitally to distinguish sick people from healthy people and make changes.”
During the diagnosis process, the subjects are required to perform specific tasks and respond to behaviors through software, games, etc. At the same time, the subjects’ brain electricity and other physiological signals are collected, and artificial intelligence algorithms are used to provide data analysis and judgment by the system. According to Li Dai, Wangli Technology currently uses AI technology to assess drug addiction with an accuracy of 90% and for depression with an accuracy of 87%. The accuracy is based on the test results based on the gold standard for mental illness assessment.
According to Li Dai, in the process of clinical research on digital therapy for depression, usually only 10%-20% of the applicants meet the recruitment requirements during the patient recruitment process. In terms of cost, this is a relatively high threshold, but the noise is filtered in advance, which helps to ensure the accuracy of data and labels; in addition, due to the early entry, the time and cost of a single patient for Wangli Technology to carry out clinical trials are lower than Similar overseas companies also provide a basis for model optimization.
In the past 6 years since its establishment, Wangli Technology has accumulated electrophysiological, behavioral, and medical diagnosis data of tens of thousands of patients. Based on this database, it has developed product adaptive algorithms to assist in personalized treatment and optimize the effect of digital intervention. When the effectiveness of the product is verified in the clinic, it will further increase the number of users. With the accumulation of the database, the accuracy of the model will be improved, entering a “virtuous circle”. “Only when the evaluation is accurate and the effect is good can it be truly clinically recognized.”
For patients with mental illness, compliance with medication and other treatments has always been a difficult problem to overcome. In response to this, Li Dai said that one of the reasons for poor patient compliance is that conventional treatments for mental illness are usually slow to take effect or have adverse reactions. “First of all, digital therapy has no side effects, or it can be more effective for mild patients; in addition, there are many reward mechanisms in the intervention process, which is effective and fun at the same time. Therefore, digital therapy that has been marketed overseas or has been certified by the FDA for breakthrough innovation The data shows that patient compliance is actually better.”
In terms of commercialization, Wangli Technology chooses to cooperate with customers in the B-end industry to provide large-scale A complete set of solutions for psychological screening, assessment and diagnosis, and training improvement. It is understood that currently, as a serious medical product, Wangli Technology’s APP requires a doctor’s prescription before it can be used; in the future, it may expand the 2C out-of-hospital market.
According to Insight Partners data, the global digital therapy market is expected to grow from US$4.22 billion in 2021 to US$18.06 billion in 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 23.1%. On the track of digital therapy, leading companies such as Akili and Pear Therapeutics have emerged overseas; in the future, in the fields of mental, behavioral and cognitive disorders, domestic companies are also expected to stand out from the competition and make up for a large number of unmet clinical needs in this field.
Investor’s point of view
Regarding this financing, Dr. Shen Rong from Morningside Venture Partners said: “There are huge unmet needs in the field of psychology and neurology in China, with high prevalence, limited traditional treatment methods, and clear pain points such as the scarcity of high-quality doctors and psychotherapists. .Digital therapy has been proven effective by years of scientific research and clinical trials at home and abroad. Considering its attributes such as convenient superposition and personalized adaptation, it is expected to become one of the high-quality solutions for mental and psychological diseases. Based on Morningside’s overseas investment in a number of related Based on the comprehensive experience of digital therapy companies in the field, we believe that Wangli Technology has achieved remarkable results in overall pipeline layout, product design, hospital and expert resources, and commercial implementation. The company team has a good entrepreneurial spirit and execution ability. We expect to have more in-depth cooperation with Wangli Technology in the future, and use this platform to introduce the world’s leading treatment methods to China and benefit more patients.”
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related events
- “Wangli Technology” completed 100 million-level financing, led by Morningside Venture Capital 2022-12-05
- Nansu Technology completed the A-round financing of tens of millions of yuan, and Shulan Junjie Capital exclusively invested2022-12-01
- Bosten completed the A+ round of financing of 100 million yuan2022-09-16
- Ningdong Medical, a digital therapy company in both mental and neurological fields, has completed two consecutive rounds of financing2022-06-08
- Shudan Medical announced the completion of tens of millions of yuan in financing2022-05-16
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