Pear Therapeutics

Article

Pear Therapeutics is a recurring organization 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 “Pear Therapeutics released a CBT-i app”; “Pear Therapeutics created a CBT-i app”; “I’m philosophically opposed to blaming Pear Therapeutics, the company behind Somryst”. It most often appears alongside FDA, Somryst, US.

Metadata

  • Category: Organizations
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: May 12, 2021
  • Last seen: May 14, 2021

Appears In

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.

May 12, 2021 · Original source
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.
You or I could create a CBT-i app tomorrow and sell it for $1 or $10 or whatever the normal price of an app is. But it wouldn’t be official, and insurance companies wouldn’t pay for it. Pear Therapeutics created a CBT-i app, put in the work to make it official, and now they’re selling it for $899. “Our support team, PearConnect™, will help determine insurance coverage eligibility during onboarding”, says their website.
And I’m philosophically opposed to blaming Pear Therapeutics, the company behind Somryst. If you let a for-profit company charge $899 for an app, of course they’ll be all over that. I’m less interested in Somryst being greedy enough to charge $899 for an app - I assume most app makers would charge $899 if they thought they could get away with it - and more interested in why this is apparently a price that the market will bear.
May 14, 2021 · Original source
See also comments from the clinical director of a digital therapeutics company, the libertarian Cato Institute’s Director of Health Policy Studies, and a former employee of Pear Therapeutics.