Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/1152989
t m c » p u l s e | a u g u s t 2 0 1 9 36 t m c » p u l s e | a u g u s t 2 0 1 9 K ristian Ranta wants you to get help—and he wants to make it easy for you. The founder and CEO of Meru Health, a digital clinic focused on treating anxiety and depression, knows how important managing those conditions can be: he himself went through years of therapy after losing his brother to suicide in 2005, and he hopes that his company can do for others what his therapists did for him. "I started realizing how import- ant these things are for people when tough stuff happens," Ranta said. "And through my own experience, I started to have a clear idea of how I could actually, through a digital intervention, deliver these pieces to people like my brother." Ranta, originally from Finland, hails from an entrepreneurial background. His parents both had careers in business, and he founded his first company at age 25. After selling a diabetes management sys- tem he was developing in 2015, he founded Meru Health the following year—yoking his background in medical device development to his newfound mission to make mental health services accessible to the masses. The company is now based out of both Finland and Palo Alto, California. Digital therapeutics is an emerg- ing trend in medicine that uses digital products to help manage, treat or prevent disease. Meru Health, which was part of a recent TMCx cohort, is unique in the world of digital platforms in that it is not an app in the traditional sense, but more akin to a digital clinic. "We are a medical corporation with technology," Ranta explained. "We have psychiatrists on staff and we have licensed therapists on staff. … It's kind of like a telehealth clinic own whenever they want and when it is good for their schedules. That's really important and has allowed us to get to a point where we have an 89 percent completion rate," Ranta said. "That's way beyond normal care." The platform also measures high in engagement, with users completing lessons or practices nearly five days out of every seven— which translates to between 15 and 20 hours of interacting with the program. "That has allowed us to get really good clinical outcomes. Normally Bringing Mental Health to the Masses Meru Health aims to provide a digital clinic for the iPhone generation B y A l e x a n d r a B e c k e r success, Ranta said. "I learned this in my previous company, that if you just have an app or a website—if you're just relying on people going through that on their own—most people just won't do it," Ranta said. "There's a lot of cool technology available, but there's no adherence or engage- ment. … What works is if they have a provider relationship. Then they stick to a treatment." Combining that accountability with the app-based tools has paid off, he added. "People can do a lot of it on their with a digital program that is on your smartphone." The platform is set up as a 12-week program supported by video lessons, practice tools and anonymous peer support groups. Each user has access to a personal licensed therapist who is available through chat or phone or video calls, if necessary. A psychiatrist oversees each therapist's caseload and can assist with medication management and other services requiring that level of expertise. Having dedicated therapists on call is critical to the platform's Kristian Ranta, founder and CEO of Meru Health, pitches his company at TMCx Demo Day in June.