ARTICLE SUMMARY:
While the terms “digital therapeutics” and “precision medicine” are loosely applied across many tech-enabled digital health start-ups, the approach of Pear Therapeutics, the first prescription digital therapeutics company, is specific and rather unique. It’s using software as a disease-modifying therapy to treat the whole patient, not just the primary disease.
On June 22, Pear Therapeutics Inc. announced a $1.6 billion “business combination” with the SPAC [special purpose acquisition company] Thimble Point Acquisition Corp., a company with ties to the Pritzker Vlock family office. Renamed Pear Holding Corp., the company will trade on Nasdaq. This follows on the heels of Pear’s $100 million Series D round of investment (which brought the total funding to date up to $250 million), in which, notably, a leading integrated delivery network provided $20 million. According to the latest news, as part of the acquisition, a group of investors that includes the Pritzker Vlock family office and the Neuberger Berman Group will provide about $125 million in a PIPE [private investment in public equity] deal. Pear and its category of prescription digital therapeutics have now entered the big leagues. [Editor’s note: this story was updated on June 23 to reflect Pear’s SPAC.]
