Akili Interactive Labs Inc., a digital medicine company, announced today that it has raised $30.5 million in new equity investments to fuel further development of innovative products that may change the way we approach the treatment of cognitive disorders.
"We're seeing the emergence of an entirely new category of non-pharmacological therapies, and Akili is leading the charge,” John Spinale, former SVP of Social Games at Disney and partner at JAZZ Venture Partners, said in a statement. His company, along with Canepa Advanced Healthcare and PureTech Health were among the primary investors.
“We love their ability to target some of the most underserved patient populations and disrupt massive markets at the same time," said Spinale.
Akili develops mobile software-based treatments and monitors that resemble video games. Most notably, the company is developing a gaming therapy called Project: EVO, which is intended to help patients with ADHD, autism, depression and traumatic brain injury.
The science behind the platform was developed at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) by Dr. Adam Gazzaley, founding director of the UCSF Neuroscience Imaging Center and Akili’s chief science advisor. His research has led to a new software-based method to measure and improve an important part of executive function called interference processing.
The developers deployed those mechanics in a consumer videogame engine that can run on mobile phones and tablets and meets all of the requirements for rigorous clinical studies. The system is currently under testing in a number of clinical studies.
The company intends to use the $30.5 million to further develop the product and help establish the commercial infrastructure necessary to gain FDA approval and formally launch the product.
A recent pilot study that investigated the effect that Project: EVO has on children with ADHD found that it improves attention, inhibition, and working memory. Based on that data and the results of an earlier randomized, controlled study conducted by Gazzaley, Akili will start a large, randomized, controlled pivotal study to further confirm the efficacy and safety of the platform.
The results of that study are expected to be released in 2017 and if the results are positive, Akili may launch the platform by the end of 2017.
