Constant Therapy a business that’s developed a set of digital health exercises to support personalized stroke therapy is raising between $3 million and $5 million for product development and for a sales and marketing push.
In an interview with MedCity News at the AARP Health Innovation @50 Tech Expo, Constant Therapy co-founder Veera Arantha likened the therapy to homework, He talked about some of the changes at the company since making its platform for mobile devices available to consumers eight months ago. In March it hired Keith Cooper as CEO, who has served as president of Carbonite, a cloud-based storage business that went public. He also served as RatePoint CEO. He represented the company as part of the AARP’s Health Innovation Live Pitch competition.
The company offers 15,000 exercises for speech, language and cognitive rehabilitation such as picture matching and identifying the most suitable word in different situations. Patients and are givers can download its platform directly through a subscription that charges users nearly $20 per month or roughly $200 per year. There is a patient-facing side to the exercise platform and a clinician side, so physicians can track their patients’ progress.
It doesn’t currently charge clinicians and it’s looking to use the fundraise to add more to its network. But Arantha emphasized that it’s still testing business models.
On the subject of product development, Arantha said it’s interested in expanding its NeuroPerformance Engine to other neurological conditions such as epilepsy, dementia and also sees relevance for people with learning disabilities. Northwestern Medical School has done an epilepsy study with the engine and another study at Boston University is evaluating its use with dementia patients.
“We’re at a point when we’re seeing significant expansion with our product,” Arantha said.
Its technology is based on research that came out of Boston University.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
