The fitness and wellness markets experienced a major shakeup in 2020 due to the pandemic. The reverberations of those changes will be felt into 2021 and beyond. Wearable tech, which started with counting steps, can now track heart rate and sleep. Now, we’re seeing a growing number of wearables that are tracking stress and helping consumers do something about it - a development that couldn't be more timely. Fitbit's forthcoming release, the FitBit Sense ($330) will be the first wearable to track stress through electrodermal activity, or how well skin conducts electricity. Sensors on the tracker’s rim pick up on moisture triggered by stress. Companies we’ll be discussing here include Hapbee Technologies, Field Trip Health, Teladoc Health, Intra-Cellular Therapies, and EMPOWER CLINICS.
Read more: US Army Outfits Paratroopers With WHOOP Strap To Assess Level of Stress
Hapbee Technologies, a wellness technology company developing the revolutionary Hapbee wearable, announced it has signed partnering agreements with two U.S. veteran non-profit organizations, Grey Team Inc. ("Grey Team") and The Mission After, to enable data collection with respect to users' perception of the impact of Hapbee signals on their stress and productivity levels within a sample group of military veterans.
Under the terms of the partnering agreements, Grey Team and The Mission After have purchased approximately twenty Hapbee wearables for veterans' use at a discounted rate. Each Hapbee wearable will come with a lifetime subscription to all six original signals and are specifically for the purpose of R&D and user experience data collection. The partner organizations will, with users' permission, provide Hapbee with access to users of the product to garner individual responses and feedback.
Hapbee is a wearable magnetic field technology company that aims to help people choose how they feel. Powered by patented ultra-low radio frequency energy (ulRFE®) technology invented and licensed by EMulate Therapeutics, Inc., Hapbee delivers low-power electromagnetic signals designed to produce sensations such as Happy, Alert, Focus, Relax, Calm and Sleepy, says a press release.
Heroic Hearts Project (HHP), an international nonprofit organization that connects military veterans struggling with mental trauma to psychedelic therapies, and Field Trip Health Ltd., the global leader in the development and delivery of technology-enabled psychedelic therapies, recently announced entry into a strategic relationship to increase access to, and awareness of, psychedelic therapies for veterans suffering from mental health disorders such as PTSD.
Under the terms of the relationship, HHP will be conducting active outreach and education programs for military veterans about the therapeutic potential of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP). Field Trip, which through its Basecamp division, has developed a unique KAP+ trauma-focused treatment pathway tailored to veterans and frontline workers, will assist military veterans in applying for insurance and reimbursement options to make the treatment available at little to no cost through its Field Trip Health hubs.
Beyond the relationship with Field Trip, HHP primarily works to spread awareness in the veteran community of plant-based psychedelic treatments, such as ayahuasca and psilocybin, for mental health conditions and end the excessive dependence on pharmaceutical medications to treat mental traumas.
Teladoc Health, Inc., the global leader in whole-person virtual care, recently reported strong financial results for the fourth quarter and full-year ended December 31, 2020. "As virtual care shifted to become a consumer expectation in 2020, Teladoc Health not only met the rapidly growing demand, but we transformed our company to define a new category of whole-person virtual care," said Jason Gorevic, chief executive officer of Teladoc Health. "By accelerating our mission to transform the health care experience, we exceeded our fourth-quarter and full-year 2020 expectations and see strong momentum across our global business in 2021 as the market embraces the breadth and depth of our unique capabilities."
Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc. (NASDAQ: ITCI), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of therapeutics for central nervous system (CNS) disorders, recently announced the expansion of its pipeline with ITI-1284 ODT-SL. ITI-1284 is a deuterated form of lumateperone, a new molecular entity formulated as an oral disintegrating tablet for sublingual administration. Following the recent completion of its Phase 1 program, the Company plans to develop ITI-1284 ODT-SL for the treatment of behavioral disturbances in patients with dementia, the treatment of dementia-related psychosis and the treatment of certain depressive disorders in the elderly.
ITI-1284 ODT-SL is formulated as an oral solid dosage form that dissolves almost instantly when placed under the tongue, allowing for ease of use in the elderly and may be particularly beneficial for patients who have difficulty swallowing conventional tablets. ITI-1284 ODT-SL has been developed in collaboration with Catalent using its proprietary Zydis® ODT (orally disintegrating tablet) fast-dissolving formulation.
EMPOWER CLINICS INC., an integrated healthcare company - serving patients through medical centers, telemedicine platforms and a high complexity medical diagnostics laboratory processing thousands of COVID-19 specimens recently announced their KAI Medical Laboratory (KAI LAB) has achieved the following significant milestones:
