SOOMA | Combatting the global depression epidemic by mainstreaming the effective, safe and drug-free Sooma Depression Therapy

Summary
Depression is the single leading cause of disability: over 300 million people suffer from depression worldwide. This number will increase sharply following the coronavirus outbreak. Psychiatry units are overloaded in most countries already now, which is why about 75% of the people who seek help do not receive adequate treatment. It is not enough to simply scale up existing services – psychiatrists need fundamentally new approaches that help them treat more patients more effectively, without needing more resources.

Sooma Oy is a pioneering Finnish medical technology SME with a mission to bring relief to the millions of people who suffer from depression. We have developed a non-invasive brain stimulation tool that has proven highly effective and safe for treating severe depression: it offers relief for most patients in just 2-4 weeks. The treatment protocol consists of 10-20 daily 30-minute brain stimulation sessions, out of which the first is performed at a doctor’s office and patients can carry out the rest at home. Sooma is therefore the ideal tool for clinics to help more patients: home based treatment will address the main bottleneck of psychiatric care by reducing the required hospital resources by up to 90%.

At the moment our therapy should only be used under professional supervision. To unlock its true impact, we will build Sooma Online digital therapy platform that enables the use of Sooma at home. The platform will provide intelligent features allowing medical professionals to tailor the treatment to the individual, remotely monitor their progress, and adjust as needed. This platform will be a major breakthrough for the entire field of depression therapy.

This is a high-risk complex development, and the EU funding is key for de-risking the move from early adopters to the mass market. Our goal is to disrupt the global €14 billion antidepressants market, and more importantly, to help the world to get back in order in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/960095
Start date: 01-07-2020
End date: 31-03-2023
Total budget - Public funding: 2 303 750,00 Euro - 1 612 625,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

Depression is the single leading cause of disability: over 300 million people suffer from depression worldwide. This number will increase sharply following the coronavirus outbreak. Psychiatry units are overloaded in most countries already now, which is why about 75% of the people who seek help do not receive adequate treatment. It is not enough to simply scale up existing services – psychiatrists need fundamentally new approaches that help them treat more patients more effectively, without needing more resources.

Sooma Oy is a pioneering Finnish medical technology SME with a mission to bring relief to the millions of people who suffer from depression. We have developed a non-invasive brain stimulation tool that has proven highly effective and safe for treating severe depression: it offers relief for most patients in just 2-4 weeks. The treatment protocol consists of 10-20 daily 30-minute brain stimulation sessions, out of which the first is performed at a doctor’s office and patients can carry out the rest at home. Sooma is therefore the ideal tool for clinics to help more patients: home based treatment will address the main bottleneck of psychiatric care by reducing the required hospital resources by up to 90%.

At the moment our therapy should only be used under professional supervision. To unlock its true impact, we will build Sooma Online digital therapy platform that enables the use of Sooma at home. The platform will provide intelligent features allowing medical professionals to tailor the treatment to the individual, remotely monitor their progress, and adjust as needed. This platform will be a major breakthrough for the entire field of depression therapy.

This is a high-risk complex development, and the EU funding is key for de-risking the move from early adopters to the mass market. Our goal is to disrupt the global €14 billion antidepressants market, and more importantly, to help the world to get back in order in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Status

CLOSED

Call topic

EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020

Update Date

27-10-2022
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