ChristianaCare Teams with Pear Therapeutics to Provide New Treatment for Substance Use Disorders

December 3, 2020

Patients in Delaware and surrounding communities seeking treatment for opioid and substance use disorders will now have access to an innovative treatment option called prescription digital therapeutics (PDTs), in a collaboration between ChristianaCare and Pear Therapeutics, Inc. The treatment is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

ChristianaCare is advancing its leadership in harnessing value-based digital care by providing access to Pear’s reSET^® and reSET-O^® PDTs through Project Recovery, which is ChristianaCare’s outpatient program for people with substance use disorders.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vital importance of connecting people with substance-use disorder to effective therapies, and ensuring that they have access to these therapies when and where they need it,” said Jolomi Ikomi, M.D., medical director of Project Recovery at ChristianaCare.

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“FDA-authorized prescription digital therapeutics used with complementary therapy are shown to keep patients on the path to recovery,” he said. “The use of proven software-based therapeutics could provide innovative, convenient and cost-effective care to assist in the fight against addiction.”

Delaware has the second highest rate of overdose deaths in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Substance and opioid use disorders are chronic, treatable diseases. Staying in treatment is critical for people on their recovery journey.

Therapeutics reSET and reSET-O will give patients a discreet, 24/7 evidence-based tool to complement their remote or in-office addiction therapy provided by their care team.

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“Pear is excited to team with ChristianaCare to integrate our PDTs into their treatment paradigm for suitable patients who are fighting the battle of opioid or substance use disorder,” said Julia Strandberg, chief commercial officer of Pear Therapeutics. “We believe these innovative therapies can benefit ChristianaCare patients.”

Therapeutics reSET and reSET-O are the first two PDTs to receive market authorization from the FDA to treat disease. Both products have been tested in real world use and randomized controlled trials, with results published in peer-reviewed medical journals.

Both products, which are adjunctive to outpatient counseling, provide patients with algorithm-driven cognitive behavioral therapy, fluency training and contingency management, while clinicians receive access to clinical dashboards to inform in-office and televisits.

The therapeutic reSET, which is intended to increase abstinence from a patient’s substances of abuse during treatment and to increase retention in the outpatient treatment program, is used as a monotherapy for patients with substance use disorder.

The therapeutic reSET-O, which is intended to increase retention of patients in outpatient treatment, is used in combination with transmucosal buprenorphine for patients with opioid use disorder.

PDTs are a new therapeutic class that uses software to directly treat disease. Like traditional medicines, PDTs are tested in randomized controlled trials demonstrating safety and effectiveness, evaluated and authorized by regulators like the FDA, and used under the supervision of a prescribing clinician. Unlike traditional medicines, PDTs are designed to collect real world data for use by prescribing clinicians and for population health management by payors and health systems.