Outro, a neuroscience-based platform, announced last week that it raised $7 million in pre-seed and seed funding.
The New York-based company helps patients discontinue psychiatric medications. Patients visit with clinicians trained in safe deprescribing and receive access to personalized tapering plans. They also gain access to compounded medication doses.
“Roughly 1 in 6 Americans take antidepressants. There are tens of millions of people on these drugs, yet no science-based way to get off safely. … Outro is the off-ramp that should have been built from the beginning. We want getting off a medication to be as supported as getting on it – arguably even more,” said Brandon Goode, co-founder and CEO of Outro.
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Outro’s funding included participation from Listen Ventures, Cake Ventures, Jason Calicanis’s LAUNCH, Actions Capital, Hannah Grey Ventures, SemperVirens, Brock Recovery Group and Pave Health Ventures.
According to Listen Ventures, Outro is filling a gap in the healthcare system.
“Outro is building the infrastructure, therapeutic options, and support for deprescribing, starting with antidepressants — a model we believe will become a standard part of modern healthcare,” said Ellen Wilcox, partner at Listen Ventures, in a statement.
With the financing, Outro will expand its network of deprescribing-trained clinicians and create AI clinical decision support for deprescribing, Goode said. It will also expand beyond antidepressants into other areas. Several other drug classes require safe off-ramps, such as benzodiazepines, gabapentinoids and GLP-1s, Goode noted.
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Research from Outro’s co-founder, Dr. Mark Horowitz, shows that four in five long-term antidepressant users were unable to stop their medications due to withdrawal symptoms. Horowitz helped create the hyperbolic tapering method that the company’s platform is based on. Hyperbolic tapering is a method of gradually reducing a medication dose by smaller and smaller amounts as the dose gets lower, rather than reducing it by equal increments.
“Deprescribing guidance has existed in countries like the U.K. for years,” Horowitz said in a statement. “Yet in America, where antidepressant use is widespread, tapering support is very hard to come by, so millions of patients are left without support when they are ready to come off. As someone personally impacted by a lack of tapering guidance, I am proud to be building a service to bridge this gap.”
Ultimately, Outro aims to make deprescribing a normal part of healthcare, Goode said.
“More than that, we want to empower patients with a fair opportunity to safely and sustainably transition to a life free from medication, if that’s what they want,” he said.
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