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XMeet the Startup That Wants To Deliver Ketamine to Your Door
David Shultz
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
Ketamine is on the come up in the pharmaceutical world. Once confined to nightclubs and operating rooms, the drug is quickly gaining recognition as a valuable tool for treating mental health disorders including depression and anxiety.
Amid these rising tides, Wondermed has emerged, offering telehealth consultations and, potentially, the ability to deliver the drug right to your doorstep—all while building out a virtual platform and collecting data on how to use the molecule more effectively.
At the moment, the company provides a mail order service for courses of ketamine lozenges to those who’ve been prescribed the drug along with a telehealth software bridge between doctor and patient. Wondermed currently operates in five states — California, Texas, Florida, New York and Connecticut, though it plans to expand to another eight to 10 states in the next two weeks.
In the long run however, its plans are much bigger than being a link between doctors and patients.
“We generate more than 3,000 data points on every patient that comes into the funnel, and actually receives the medication,” says co-founder & Managing Director Jose Aycart.
His company is building out its online platform to collect and analyze patient data and provide mental health support services that may be useful, regardless of whether or not a patient is taking ketamine.
These data show in granular detail how ketamine therapies work. Does the route of administration matter? Does time of day matter? What types of patients are most likely to experience positive outcomes? It’s this data that represents the biggest business opportunity for Wondermed. The specifics of the monetization are still being worked out, but Aycart says it will never sell anonymized patient data to other companies.
Wondermed is in the midst of a seed funding round, targeting $7 million by the end of the month; It’s raised $5.6 million so far.
The company makes a bit of revenue by charging patients for consultations, but in the event that a patient doesn’t wind up using Wondermed’s platform, the consultation fee is refunded. For patients who are prescribed ketamine, the company charges only as much as the drugs cost them ($249 per month, which includes four doses), so neither Wondermed nor the physicians in its employ are incentivized to over-prescribe.
The drugs themselves are supplied by Tailor Made Compounding, a pharmacy in Nicholasville, Kentucky, and Wondermed is working on additional contracts in the pipeline with several other suppliers.
. Wondermed’s transformation comes as ketamine, which has typically been restricted to use as a general anesthetic, is quickly gaining recognition as a valuable tool for treating mental health disorders like depression and anxiety.
“What I’ve found interesting is how rapidly this field has emerged,” says Steven Grant, a drug and addiction researcher who spent 25 years at the National Institute on Drug Abuse and is now retired.
Ketamine is a simple organic molecule that first gained clinical popularity in the 1960s as an anesthetic. It produces a dissociative state in patients and dulls pain. Once in the bloodstream, the molecule travels to the brain where it binds to a protein called NMDA on the surface of neurons. NMDA has a variety of jobs, but it’s best-known for its role in learning, memory, and neuroplasticity—or the brain’s ability to form new pathways between neurons.
While the research into why ketamine is such an effective treatment for depression and anxiety is ongoing, the consensus so far is that the molecule’s power comes from this ability to rewrite or rewire the brain’s circuitry. If you’ve ever had an anxiety attack or a depressive episode, it can often feel like you’re stuck in a mental loop. Ketamine, it seems, offers a way to break that loop.
“It was this idea that you're increasing your neurological connections in the brain,” says Aycart. “You have the opportunity now to spark new forms of thought, new forms of emotion, or even new ideas.”
Unlike selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and other traditional drugs used to treat depression, ketamine’s effects are fast-acting—often appearing within minutes or hours of administration—and don’t require taking the drug daily.
“It really is revolutionary, and that’s why now more than ever, people are starting to get access to it, and companies like ourselves are really trying to bring it to people as an alternative form of medicine,” says Aycart.
Grant says the rise of ketamine clinics and telehealth services like Wondermed are likely a net positive because they increase patient access to drugs patients need, but he also has reservations about how the therapies are being applied.
Many of these psychoactive drugs—especially ketamine—are intended to be used in tandem with therapy, or at least under the supervision of a trained professional. Increasing the brain’s plasticity is a valuable tool for breaking out of depressive loops, but unless a professional is there to help the patient settle into a healthier mental pattern, the full benefits may be left on the table.
Wondermed offers a variety of supplementary support and strategies along with the drugs themselves, but taking advantage of these tools is left to the patient’s discretion. Grant would like to see a larger focus on extending and expanding that auxiliary support.
The company says it’s focused on building out the platform’s nonmedicinal mental health strategies—things like breathwork, meditation, music therapy—and adding them to an app. If they can get enough people on board, the eventual plan could be to sell health insights back to patients through a subscription model or something similar. They may even patent their own psychedelic molecules in the future. But all of this is likely quite a ways out.
“What we're trying to do is very new, and the landscape yet hasn't been built out,” says Aycart.
Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify Wondermed's monthly rate for ketamine lozenges.
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David Shultz
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
The Culver City mobile game unicorn, Scopely, announced Wednesday that Chief Revenue Officer Tim O'Brien has been appointed to the company's board of directors. Since he joined Scopely in 2014, the company has grown from 50 to 800 employees and reached a $1.7 billion valuation.
"My time at Scopely has been the highlight of my professional career, and I'm really proud of the tremendous growth we've achieved," O'Brien told dot.LA in an e-mail. "The business has scaled 35x over these last six years, and I continue to be energized every day to come to work and tackle new challenges with all of my Scopely partners."
Prior to Scopely, O'Brien served as Vice President of worldwide business development at Disney Interactive. Before that he was Vice President of business development at Tapulous, which was acquired by Walt Disney Co. during his tenure.
"Tim has been instrumental in driving our strategy and teams, building the culture and organization upon which Scopely has grown into a global leader in mobile games, including the company's Studio Ecosystem, publishing model, and key IP partnerships with a diverse set of licensors," said Scopely co-CEO & Board Member Javier Ferreira in a press release. "We could not have accomplished what we have the last six years without him, and I am thrilled to formally have his voice on our Board."
O'Brien said it was too soon to know what the effect on COVID-19 would be on the company's upcoming performance, or whether users would be more likely to play video games during times when human contact is discouraged.
"We're continuing to follow the guidelines stipulated by core organizations in each market, including the CDC and the World Health Organization, and have already encouraged employees to work remotely when necessary," O'Brien said. "We also owe it to our players around the world to keep the experiences they love up and running -- a priority every Scopely employee is aligned on."
Last week, Scopely launched Scrabble Go, which O'Brien says will be a key driver of growth.
"It represents a new relationship with Mattel (who owns the rights to the Scrabble brand internationally) and deepens our relationship with Hasbro, our partner on Yahtzee With Buddies -- one of our most successful titles five years post-launch," O'Brien said. "The game reimagines a classic AAA IP that is widely beloved for a broad audience -- from competitive superfans to casual social players."
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Ben Bergman
Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
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Christian Hetrick
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
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