DeepPsy improves psychiatric treatment by enabling treatment personalization based on the individual biological profile of patients in the EEG and ECG.
Could you explain what your startup does in a few sentences? We analyze electroencephalograms (EEG) and electrocardiograms (ECG) to extract biological information that can help psychiatrists make better decisions when treating depression or ADHD. We use technology developed by the psychiatric scientific community. We founded DeepPsy to bring this technology into the clinical routine.
One of the main problems in psychiatric treatment is that, unlike most other fields in medicine, treatment decisions are mainly based on information obtained at the symptomatic level, with little consideration for the biological mechanisms of individual patients. To find an effective treatment, patients are subjected to a lot of guesswork and a prolonged trial-and-error process.
We, at DeepPsy, give psychiatrists access to new technologies in brain analysis developed, tested, and validated in the scientific community that help psychiatrists identify the treatment with the highest likelihood of success and ultimately shorten the trial-and-error process. Our flagship technologies are algorithms to analyze brain waves (EEG) and heart activity (ECG), which are made available to clinics/hospitals through a user-friendly web interface. Our tool is compatible with the EEGs and ECGs already present at the clinics. The output of the analysis is a report with clinically significant biological characteristics of the brain, which psychiatrists can use as additional information to improve their treatment decisions.
What is the most useful advice you have received so far? One and a half years ago, we received the following advice: "The adoption makes disruption. It is up to the users to decide to disrupt an industry. A product is not disruptive by itself if it is not adopted". We scientists sometimes tend to concentrate too much on the product and the technology, disregarding the users' needs. Speaking with the customers early and listening to their concerns is essential. This advice made us realize we need to talk with our customers early. Since then, we have been collaborating, deploying, and testing our solution in different clinics, hospitals, and medical practices. We are now confident that we have a good market fit.
What is your unique selling point for potential customers out there?
Other than being the first EEG/ECG psychiatric biomarker company in Europe, our solutions are backed by intense research. The information that we extract from the EEG and ECG can significantly improve the treatment of depression and ADHD. We offer an improvement on a topic that psychiatrists are very aware of. Indeed, many psychiatrists have been waiting for a solution like ours to be on the market.
What is currently your biggest challenge in managing your startup? Currently, we have a great team, several potential customers, and the processing pipeline ready, as well as the user-friendly interface which will become accessible to mental health providers. If we were a company outside MedTech, we would be generating revenues already. The missing piece of the puzzle is currently CE approval for the medical device. After obtaining the certification, we can start helping patients and generating revenue. We plan on gaining market access by mid-2023.