Holmusk has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Janssen (China) Research & Development Center (Janssen), a Division of Johnson & Johnson (China) Investment Ltd., to explore the development of a digital mental health strategy in China. The MoU brings together Janssen’s 60-plus years of experience developing treatments to improve mental health and its China neuroscience portfolio with Holmusk’s digital mental health platform and therapeutics design expertise to develop integrated solutions to help people living with depression and other mental health disorders.
More than 54 million people in China (4.2% of the population) suffer from depression. Proper diagnosis and treatment for depression is rare, especially in underserved regions, with less than 2 out of 10 patients seeking medical help or taking medications. Stigma regarding mental health remains high, preventing many patients from seeking care, and China has only 1.7 psychiatrists for every 100,000 people. While depression costs China USD 7.8 billion a year in lost work days, medical expenses and funeral expenses, there is a lack of available, credible data on both prevalence and treatment.
As described in the MoU, Holmusk and Janssen propose to focus on generating insights from real-world data on depression and other mental health disorders to develop novel, scalable solutions to address the increasing burden of disease in the People’s Republic of China. The parties would also identify areas of unmet need that a digital platform can enhance, and define the supporting, prioritized functionality based on the Janssen Neuroscience portfolio in China. Holmusk’s digital therapeutics and deep analytics will be used to develop and implement a competitive, comprehensive solution for mental health in China, with an initial focus on depression.
Holmusk will work with Janssen to develop a strategy that applies Holmusk’s digital therapeutics capabilities and deep mental health analytics expertise to leverage big data and real-world evidence for a broad spectrum of mental health challenges. The combination of Holmusk’s mental health platform and Janssen’s expertise and network will be used to inform future, targeted management of wellness-oriented consumers, as well as mental health patients.
"We are excited to work with Janssen, an organization trusted by patients and customers, to develop much-needed solutions for people battling mental health diseases," said Nawal Roy, Founder and CEO of Holmusk. "In Janssen, we have a partner that is dedicated to transforming how mental health is managed in China. We have confidence that we can establish data as a core utility to the treatment of mental health and provide the capacity for leapfrog-change in the provision of care and research into new treatments."
Holmusk is a data science and digital health company building the world’s largest real-world evidence platform for neuroscience. Holmusk’s MoU with Janssen is in line with its efforts to share subject matter expertise with leading innovators to improve mental health in Mainland China.
