Investing in Severe Mental Health: Welcoming Options MD to Bread and Butter
There has been a lot of discussion about mental illness in the past couple of years, resulting in the acknowledgment that the US is in an unprecedented mental health crisis; 1 in 5 adults in the US experiences mental illness each year. We don’t often talk publicly about severe mental health issues. But they’re definitely here.
About 21 million US adults (8.4% of the population) had at least one major depressive episode in 2020. Of those adults, it is estimated that ⅓ of patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) experience treatment resistant depression. Treatment resistant depression (TRD) is defined as MDD in adults who have not responded to at least two different antidepressant treatments in the current moderate to severe depressive episode.
TRD is rarely talked about but there is a major need for improved access to options for care, not only from a general human welfare standpoint but also from the viewpoint of what it costs our healthcare system. Out of the $225 billion+ spent on all mental health care in the US, more than $64 billion per year goes to TRD expenditures. TRD patients are 4x more costly to treat per-patient than non-resistant patients.
I personally, had never heard of treatment-resistant depression until several years ago, when after years of dealing with Major Depression I was identified as having TRD. It is amazing to see more resources and solutions emerging for the broader society but this is a population that has different and specific health requirements. And yes, there are quite a few behavioral health startups out there, but very, very few are focused on this specific group of patients.
This is one of the reasons I am so excited that a company called Options MD is going to market specifically with high-quality care designed for treatment-resistant depression.
The platforms that have been released in the past few years just don’t feel like they’re designed with the complexity of care and treatment that TRD requires. Major Depression is brutal in itself. Add in treatment resistance and you pile on frustration, fear of recurrence and shame at not finding solutions. Whatever the costs to the system, TRD is often just plain dangerous — between 15–30% of patients with TRD are estimated to have attempted suicide at least once in their lifetime.
The average patient in the Options MD community (me included) has suffered from chronic depression for more than 10 years and tried an average of 7 different medications / interventions. The inherent complexity, history and experience of patients dealing with TRD requires a different digital, telehealth and community approach than we’ve seen before. We have a unique understanding of both the enormous market opportunity and complexity of care as well as the challenges of the patient journey through my personal experience.
We are proud to share that we are leading a new investment round in Options MD, alongside an incredible syndicate of investors including UnitedHealthcare, Collab Capital, Bright Ventures, Techstars, M13, Med Mountain Ventures, Google for Startups, and other prominent angels. Mary Grove who runs our Digital Health practice led this deal for us but I asked if I could be the one to write this post to share a few my own insights from a patient perspective. Options is building a solution that helps patients like me find & stay on the right treatment faster, identify personalized treatment care plans and get support from a highly engaged peer community. At official launch this week, Options MD’s community is well over 5K strong. There is a strong desire to find others to discuss side effects, treatments, frustrations and fears with, but, in large part due to the strong stigmas around severe mental health, in the past, it’s been difficult and awkward to connect with others battling this disease.
Mary, Brett and I first met Morgan and Kyle when they were going through the UnitedHealthcare Accelerator powered by Techstars. I had the honor of being one of their lead mentors and got to work quite closely with the team. Morgan and Kyle are two of the most engaging, exciting founders we’ve met. Not only do they have incredible backgrounds in the tech, marketing and legal sides of the healthcare system, they bring an unparalleled passion for wanting to serve and help the population they’re building for. You can see their empathy and understanding coming alive in their focus on building and deserving trust from their users.
Morgan, Kyle and team’s approach to this market demonstrates their knowledge and empathy for the complexity of TRD patients. They think about product through the lens of this very specific audience and their needs. Increasing medical literacy around the available treatments on the market is vital for helping this patient population. Having TRD means that one solution isn’t enough — new options are central to maintaining health. Treatment plans for TRD patients may include a combination of different types of anti-depressants (SSRIs, SNRIs, MAOIs, Tryclic, Atypical); anti-depressant augmentation medication; treatments like TMS or ECT; specific types of therapy like CBT or DBT, and more. The Options MD team is building a platform specifically designed to help identify, connect to and manage these complex treatment plans.
Options MD is probably my favorite name for any startup I’ve come across because the concept of having options is so core to their mission and values. Discovering new treatments, new options, is core to finding what works for treatment resistant patients, including me. Identifying solutions that were not widely available (or approved) when I first started dealing with the disease 20+ years ago has been instrumental in my current care and ability to now deal with recurrent depressive episodes in a proactive, intelligent manner.
While currently focused on TRD, a humongous opportunity in itself, Options MD has huge opportunities in the broader market as more than 32 million deal with treatment-resistant mental illness such as treatment-resistant bipolar disorder. This is a population that needs and deserves solutions. As a TRD patient myself I can share that treatment resistance mental illness can cause significant fear and shame of recurrence, distrust of the healthcare system and massive bills related to complex treatment plans.
Options MD has an incredible opportunity to have a massive positive impact, saving and changing the lives of millions of individuals and their families. We are proud to support them on this journey as they make real change in our healthcare system.
