Somryst
Article
Somryst is a recurring brand in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between May 12, 2021 and May 14, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as “Make sure that every use of Somryst is associated with a doctor’s prescription”; “the company behind Somryst. If you let a for-profit company charge $899 for an app”; “make an affordable and accessible version of Somryst”. It most often appears alongside FDA, Pear Therapeutics, US.
Metadata
- Category: Brands
- Mention count: 2
- Issue count: 2
- First seen: May 12, 2021
- Last seen: May 14, 2021
Appears In
Related Pages
-
- FDA (2 shared issues)
-
- Pear Therapeutics (2 shared issues)
-
- US (2 shared issues)
-
- Alexander Pope (1 shared issues)
-
- Argos (1 shared issues)
-
- Cato Institute (1 shared issues)
-
- CBT-i (1 shared issues)
-
- CBT-i Coach (1 shared issues)
-
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy For Insomnia (1 shared issues)
-
- Deplin (1 shared issues)
-
- Diphenhydramine (1 shared issues)
-
- Dozy (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
Until now! Late last year, Pear Therapeutics released a CBT-i app (formerly “SHUT-i”, now “Somryst”) which holds the patient’s hand through the complicated CBT-i process. Studies show it works as well as a real therapist, which is very well indeed. There’s only one catch: you need a doctor’s prescription.
Inline links: Somryst
Wait, you can prescription-gate an app? Yes! Although you can download Somryst off your normal App Store, it won’t work until a doctor writes you a prescription to “activate” it. Until then, it just shows you ads for how great CBT-i would be if you could get it.
And it’s not just Somryst. I know of at least three other prescription apps. reSET and reSET-O are 12-week courses to help addiction and opioid addiction, respectively. EndeavourRx is a video game which is supposed to help manage ADHD in kids. I guarantee you there are a lot more of these in the pipeline.
Inline links: reSET and reSET-O, EndeavourRx
There are a lot of studies here, but I'm going to choose two kind of random ones. Taylor et al show that in-person cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia has an effect size of 0.98, and the same therapy delivered over the Internet has an effect size of 0.51 (both numbers significantly different from control, not significantly different from each other). Somryst itself has significantly outperformed placebo in several studies. A meta-analysis finds that "Low to moderate grade evidence suggests CBT-I has superior effectiveness to benzodiazepine and non-benzodiazepine drugs in the long term, while very low grade evidence suggests benzodiazepines are more effective in the short term".
It looks like Somryst was simultaneously assessed through the 510k pathway and some kind of lighter touch test regulatory procedure for apps from trusted vendors. Looks like they're currently running apps through both processes to compare the results (and presumably see if the new process misses anything disastrous).
https://peartherapeutics.com/pear-therapeutics-obtains-fda-authorization-for-somryst-a-prescription-digital-therapeutic-for-the-treatment-of-adults-with-chronic-insomnia/