After flying high in 2022, digital therapeutics (DTx) companies crashed to Earth in 2023 and scrambled to identify a path to profitability, or at least continued viability.

A financial freefall left prescription digital therapeutic pioneer Pear Therapeutics Inc. cut into four pieces following a bankruptcy judge’s approval of the sale of its assets for a total of $6.05 million. Sleep-focused Nox Health Group took the biggest bite, acquiring the FDA-cleared Somryst PDT for $3.9 million. Other buyers included Harvest Bio LLC, Click Therapeutics Inc. and Welt Corp. Ltd. The total generated from the assets was woefully short of the company’s $32 million in debt.

Pear Therapeutics Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection under chapter 11 to buy time to sell its assets. The company was the first-to-market for prescription digital therapies, with three PDTs gaining regulatory nods from the FDA: Reset for substance use disorder, Reset-O for opioid use disorder and Somryst for insomnia. Reset-A received breakthrough device designation in 2021. The Reset therapies are approved for use in conjunction with medication therapy or other outpatient therapy for substance use.

Pear Therapeutics Inc. partnered with Softbank Corp. to bring a digital therapy for sleep/wake disorders to the Japanese market. Pear will develop the app, while Softbank will evaluate Japanese market potential with an option to negotiate an exclusive license for Pear’s Japanese sleep/wake disorder therapeutics.

Pear Therapeutics Inc. has seen its efforts in the prescription digital therapeutics (PDT) space come to fruition with two new deals reported this week. The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. now covers two of the company's therapeutics – Reset, for substance use disorder, and Reset-O, for opioid use disorder – for its employees and their beneficiaries. Preferredone will also cover the two PDTs for all its members.

Pear Therapeutics Inc. obtained FDA approval for Somryst, the first prescription digital therapeutic for chronic insomnia. The app provides structured cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) with clinical dashboards for physicians. While CBT is the recommended first-line therapy for insomnia, the U.S. has only 500 therapists certified to provide CBT for insomnia (CBTi) for the estimated 30 million Americans who suffer from chronic difficulty going to and staying asleep.