Big Health, a digital therapeutics company dedicated to helping millions back to good mental health, today announced that it has added former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Deputy Commissioner for Medical and Scientific Affairs Dr. Anand Shah to its Board of Directors. This key addition follows Big Health’s $75 million Series C financing, led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 with participation from Gilde Healthcare amongst other investors.

As a member of the Big Health Board of Directors, Dr. Shah will help expand access to digital therapeutics as non-drug alternatives for mental health care. Dr. Shah will take an active role in bolstering the company’s public policy strategies while scaling its novel reimbursement model to accelerate the adoption of digital therapeutics.

Dr. Shah held multiple senior leadership roles at FDA and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) from 2016 to 2021, where he focused on bringing new technologies to market, redesigning health care delivery and payment models, and expanding consumer choice. At FDA, he developed multiple public health policies and programs including those related to digital health, clinical trials, and real-world evidence. At CMS, Dr. Shah led the clinical design of novel value-based payment and service delivery models, including those for advanced primary care, specialty care, and prescription drugs.

Following Big Health’s Series C funding and the addition of Dr. Shah, the Big Health Board of Directors now consists of:

●    Arun Gupta, Big Health Executive Chairman

●    Peter Hames, Big Health Chief Executive Officer

●    Dr. Anand Shah, Former FDA Deputy Commissioner

●    John Cassidy, SoftBank Investment Advisers, Investment Director, Life Sciences & HealthTech

●    Janke Dittmer, Gilde Healthcare Venture&Growth – General Partner HealthTech

●    Alliott Cole, Octopus Ventures co-CEO

●    Liz Rockett, Kaiser Permanente Ventures Managing Director

Big Health is the most studied and scaled digital therapeutics company, with over 10 million covered lives globally, 13 randomized controlled trials evaluating its approach, and more than 28,000 participants across all clinical evidence studies. Sleepio and Daylight, Big Health’s digital therapeutics for insomnia and anxiety, offer fully automated products that deliver evidence-based mental health care, including cognitive behavioral therapy, without intervention from coaches or clinicians. Through robust clinical evaluation, Big Health’s digital therapeutics serve as non-drug alternatives for mental health care. To ease adoption for payers and patients alike, Big Health pioneered the ability to bill through the PBM, enabling employers and health plans to add Big Health to their formulary and pay for their use via a drug claim – which is the same way they pay for medications.

Big Health’s mission is to help millions back to good mental health by providing safe and effective non-drug alternatives for the most common mental health conditions including insomnia and anxiety. Designed by leading clinical experts, Big Health’s digital therapeutics expand access to gold standard care, including behavioral medicine, and are backed by industry-leading research and randomized controlled trials. By seamlessly integrating across the care pathway, from member engagement to billing via pharmacy benefit managers, Big Health simplifies adoption for both payers and patients, providing an inclusive, scalable, and affordable approach without serious side effects. For more information, please visit www.bighealth.com or follow Big Health on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Gilde Healthcare is a specialized healthcare investor with two fund strategies: Venture&Growth and Private Equity. The firm operates out of offices in Utrecht (The Netherlands), Frankfurt (Germany) and Cambridge (United States). Gilde Healthcare Venture&Growth invests in fast growing, innovative companies active in (bio)pharmaceuticals, healthtech and medtech that are based in Europe and North America. For more information, please visit: www.gildehealthcare.com.