Pear Therapeutics

Pear Therapeutics develops prescription digital therapeutics (PDTs), which are FDA-approved, prescription-only, software-based treatments delivered via a mobile app. The app allows physicians to provide cognitive behavioral therapy interactively in conjunction with outpatient therapy. In April 2023, Pear voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after facing financial difficulties caused by insurers failing to reimburse its products as anticipated. The filing allows the company to restructure under court supervision while using available cash to fund its operations until the sale.

The firm had three commercially available products in the market as of April 2022: reSET, reSET-O, and Somryst. The company recorded 12,500 prescriptions in 2021 for its products. reSET was the first-ever PDT to be approved by the FDA for treating substance abuse disorders. Thereafter, the company’s reSET-O app received FDA approval, to become the first PDT for treating opioid use disorder. In terms of its products in development, the company received Breakthrough Device Designation in November 2021 for reSET-A—the first alcohol use disorder-only PDT in the US to receive FDA clearance. It also received the “Safer Technologies Program” (STeP) for Medical Devices designation from the FDA in April 2022 for its virtual reality delivered pain reduction device “Pear-010,” which targets acute and chronic pain.

Key customers and partnerships

Before filing for bankruptcy, Pear formed several partnerships and product deals to develop new products and further strengthen its product pipeline. In March 2022, the company partnered with telecommunications and IT giant SoftBank Corp. to develop PDTs targeting sleep-wake disorders for the Japanese market, as part of its plans to commercialize its PDTs outside the US. In April 2022, the company announced a program to deliver its PDTs for substance use disorder and opioid use disorder in partnership with several telehealth providers including QuickMD and Pursue Care.

Funding and financials

Pear reported revenue of USD 12.7 million in 2022, nearly half of its initial expectations of USD 22 million and lower than its revised target of USD 14 million to USD 16 million mid-year. Operating losses amounted to USD 123.4 million for the year. Pear struggled to collect payments (only 41% was collected from prescriptions filled out of 45,000 written prescriptions), which led to its decision to file for bankruptcy.

Pear Therapeutics entered into a definitive merger agreement with Thimble Point Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company in June 2021 to list the combined entity, Pear Holdings Corp, on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “PEAR”. In November 2021, Pear announced an additional commitment of up to USD 50 million from an affiliate of Thimble Point.