Aniket Singh Rajput, Founder and CEO of Neuroglee.
Every month, the e27 team runs a ‘Startup of the Month’ poll to pick the outstanding startup and give it the extra attention it deserves.
Three startups are selected internally by taking into account various criteria, including the quality of their idea, team, product and founders, and the size of their VC funding.
The winner of January is Singapore-based Neuroglee, a company providing digital therapies for neurodegenerative diseases to improve the quality of life of the patients as well as caregivers.
Digital therapy for Alzheimer’s
An effective drug solution for neurodegenerative diseases is still far away, although an estimated 60 million people are still suffering from it. These diseases — which include Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS) — are not only expensive to treat but also have a c effect on patients.
Extensive researches are being carried out around the world and researchers are hopeful that a new effective drug will be developed soon and and the progression of these diseases are controlled/stopped.
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Neuroglee is one such company, which is attempting to find a new solution to cure these chronic diseases.
Founded early this year, Neuroglee is the brainchild of Dr Aniket Singh Rajput, a PhD in Neuroscience from Nanyang Technological University. The startup aims to build a completely new care system for people suffering from neurodegenerative diseases, which aims to help them preserve their cognition and independence.
According to Rajput, evidences suggest that strategies such as games and reminiscence therapy can improve mental cognition. However, there has been no “one size fits all” solution, and each patient has to deal with the same condition differently.
What sets Neuroglee apart is that it tailor-makes therapies for each patient in accordance with his/her needs through its software platform, which monitors symptoms using biomarkers such as tapping speed, speech and motions, and then recommends patients with the right treatment.
The firm has developed a patent-pending AI technology for this.
NG-001
NG-001 is Neuroglee flagship product, which is a prescription software intended for the treatment of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and patients with early-stage Alzheimer’s Disease.
How it works? Clinicians prescribe NG-001 as a drug to the patient and Neuroglee acts as a pharmaceutical company to provide him/her with the support infrastructure, called Neuroglee Connect (NGC).
NGC will then act as an end-to-end digital support centre to fit into the clinician’s existing practice workflow.
“With NGC, clinicians can get access to dedicated case managers to support them in every step of the patient journey. This includes the facilitation of patient access to support and assist with care coverage, as well as assist clinicians with reimbursement calls, prescription and management of patients,” he said.
“So when a patient is enrolled, the clinician prescribes a therapeutic solution to the patient. This is when he starts his/her six-month journey. We have designed several mechanisms of actions, which will be tailored to that particular patient, depending on what he/she is responding to and what he/she is not good at, and we will try to improve, for example, certain aspects of emotions,” he explained.
NG-001, according to Rajput, can be used independently and/or in conjunction with pharmacotherapy for better patient management.
From researcher to entrepreneur
Born and bred in India, Rajput did not originally intend to enter the field of neuroscience. After securing his undergrad in Robotics from Visvesvaraya Technological University India, he went on to pursue his Master’s in Robotics and Healthcare in Hong Kong.
After this, he went to MIT Labs in Singapore and started working on Human Perception and Human Control Strategy algorithms. Later, he received an offer to pursue PhD in Neuroscience in NTU.
Rajput shared that during his time in Singapore, he primarily focussed on stroke and Parkinson’s patients and built rehabilitation strategies for them. Later on, he realised there was no effective solution to treat and manage Alzheimer’s patents.
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A researcher at heart, this got him thinking about developing a solution and he decided to start Neuroglee.
Market opportunities
The startup targets market such as Singapore, the US and Japan, where neurodegenerative diseases are more common among the elderly population. The prevalence of dementia is higher in developed countries such as Japan, South Korea and the US, making it a good base for the startup to roll out its services.
Having said that, NG-001 is still in its nascent stage and needs to go through the whole proof of concept phase and be approved by regulatory agencies such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to enter foreign markets.
“Our initial focus would be to obtain the FDA approval and then roll out our products in the US and Singapore, followed by Japan,” he said.
Neuroglee, however, is not the only startup working in this space. There are companies such as Denali Therapeutics, Neurotrack and MyndYou which are providing innovative solutions, and over years, they have raised large amounts of funding from notable investors.
Funding
Last month, Neuroglee raised US$2.3 million in pre-seed funding from Eisai Co., one of Japan’s largest pharmaceutical companies, and Kuldeep Singh Rajput, the founder and CEO of predictive healthcare startup Biofourmis.
Also Read: Neuroglee bags US$2.3M in pre-seed funding to strengthen fight against Alzheimer’s
With the money, the startup will advance product development for NG-001, which is intended for the treatment and management of patients with early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Clinical trials are expected to begin in early 2021 and the startup plans to open its US operations in Boston in 2021.
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Image Credit: Neuroglee
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