Brooklyn Health Revolutionizes Mental Health Assessment in Clinical Trials with AI-Powered Platform

Brooklyn Health, a neuroscience technology company, is making waves in the pharmaceutical industry with its innovative approach to mental health measurement and scoring in central nervous system (CNS) drug development. The startup's AI-powered platform, Willis, aims to modernize and standardize the assessment of mental health outcomes in clinical trials, addressing longstanding challenges in the field.

Transforming Clinical Interviews with Digital Phenotyping

At the heart of Brooklyn Health's technology is digital phenotyping, a novel approach to objectively measure behavioral indicators of mental illness. The company's platform utilizes AI and computer vision to evaluate facial expressions, voice characteristics, and motor functioning, providing a more precise and standardized method of assessing symptoms compared to traditional clinical interviews.

Anzar Abbas, Ph.D., neuroscientist and founder of Brooklyn Health, explains, "Measurement is a pretty core problem in neurology and psychiatry because it's just so tough to quantify what somebody has and how badly their symptoms are manifesting. We rely on these subjective clinical interviews, but they can be flawed for a multitude of reasons."

The Willis platform automates the review process of clinical interviews, offering real-time feedback on interview administration and score accuracy. This approach not only enhances the reliability of outcome measures but also addresses the high failure rate and substantial costs associated with CNS clinical trials.

Industry Partnerships and Validation

Brooklyn Health has secured partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies, including Bristol Myers Squibb and Boehringer Ingelheim, validating the potential of their technology. The company recently raised $6.5 million in seed funding led by HealthX Ventures, with participation from several other investors, to expand its team and accelerate commercial deployments.

In a recent analysis conducted for one of its pharmaceutical customers, Brooklyn Health demonstrated that using Willis to score clinical interviews in a psychiatry study improved separation of drug from placebo by 34% as measured by effect size. This significant improvement highlights the potential impact of the technology on trial outcomes and drug development efficiency.

Mark Bakken, founder and managing partner at HealthX Ventures, stated, "Brooklyn Health is directly addressing what has ailed CNS drug development for decades: endpoint quality and placebo response."

Implications for the Future of Mental Health Treatment

While Brooklyn Health's current focus is on improving outcome measurement in drug development and clinical trials, the company has broader ambitions. Abbas envisions the technology supporting outcome measurement across all forms of behavioral health delivery, including in-clinic psychiatric care and virtual mental health platforms.

The potential for more targeted treatments resulting from improved measurement techniques could lead to more precise treatment plans for patients. Abbas notes, "Other practices of medicine have moved on to much more precise treatment plans, such as in oncology, cardiology and immunology. We don't have that in neurology and psychiatry because we don't have the drugs that are specific enough."

As Brooklyn Health continues to refine and expand its technology, the company's innovative approach to mental health assessment has the potential to significantly impact not only drug development but also the broader field of neurological and psychiatric research and treatment.