March 27, 2020 — New York, NY
As HappifyDTx’s business gains momentum, new executives named in Boston office.
Today, Happify Health announced the election of Chris Wasden, EdD, as Treasurer to the Board of Directors of the Digital Therapeutics Alliance, a non-profit trade association of industry leaders and stakeholders engaged in the evidence-driven advancement of digital therapeutics. Dr. Wasden joined Happify Health to grow HappifyDTx, the company’s business division focused on creating digital therapeutic products that deliver safe, evidence-based therapeutic interventions to treat, manage or improve people’s physical and mental health through meaningful behavior change. HappifyDTx achieves this by translating the science in a variety of areas, such as evidence-based and clinically validated cognitive therapy, positive psychology, and mindfulness, into highly engaging, gamified therapeutic interventions or activities.
“The election of Chris as Treasurer to the Board of the Digital Therapeutics Alliance demonstrates his thought leadership, unique contributions and recent success in shaping the industry for years to come,” said Ofer Leidner, Co-Founder and President, Happify Health. “Since joining, Chris has driven Happify Health’s prescription digital therapeutics strategy forward, leveraging our robust, validated platform. With his passion and knowledge in digital therapeutics, I’m confident Chris will help advance the Alliance’s goals.”
HappifyDTx develops digital therapeutic and care solutions for patients as well as provides solutions to pharmaceutical companies that deliver new patients for existing therapies, develops prescription digital therapies, and provides digital care to patients. These solutions deliver disease-specific therapies to address both the mental and physical symptoms and attributes of these diseases. These regulated digital therapies can be both prescription and non-prescriptions to address, manage, and treat medical conditions and disorders comorbid with stress, anxiety and depression and deliver related digital care to patients.
In September 2019, the company announced a 10 year collaboration with Sanofi to leverage the Happify digital therapeutics platform that addresses the metacondition of stress, anxiety and depression to develop and deliver a digital MS therapy. Sanofi and Happify Health view this collaboration as the beginning of a long-term effort to use technology to engage and empower patients to improve their health, increase their access to care and improve their outcomes in a cost-effective way.
Prior to Happify Health, Dr. Wasden was most recently a professor at the University of Utah and served as Executive Director of the Sorenson Center for Discovery & Innovation, a digital health game incubator. He is the co-author of two books on innovation, creativity, and leadership: Tension - The Energy of Innovation; and Solving for Why - Change Your Identity, Change Your Future. He is the named inventor on 12 issued patents, has been a founding leader in 10 startups, and has held leadership positions at JP Morgan and PwC. He holds a doctorate from George Washington University in Human and Organizational Learning, and an M.B.A. from UCLA Anderson School.
In addition to Happify Health’s New York headquarters, the company has opened a new office in Burlington, Massachusetts, bolstering their footprint in the Boston area’s growing digital health landscape in support of their growing digital therapeutics team.
HappifyDTx has made a number of key executive hires under Wasden’s management, including:
- Kate Hoffman, PhD, MPH, Vice President, Alliance Management
- Melanie Leibowitz, Vice President, Quality and Regulatory Affairs
- Yasodhara (Dhara) Paruchuru, MBA, MA, Vice President, Value and Access
- Elise Pietracatella, Vice President, Digital Therapeutics Marketing
Happify Health has already demonstrated effectiveness of its existing, metacondition® solution in reducing stress, anxiety and depression within the general population through a randomized controlled trial in 2018. Published in the International Journal of Wellbeing, the study found nearly a 25% reduction in symptoms of anxiety and more than a 25% reduction in symptoms of depression for those using Happify at the recommended level (a minimum of 16 activities completed over eight weeks).
About Happify Health
Happify Health is a LifeTech company that delivers digital therapeutics and innovative care delivery models to improve mental and physical health. As a leader in digital therapeutic solutions, Happify Health’s safe, effective digital tools use scientific research from positive psychology, CBT and mindfulness, combined with a gamified approach and leading-edge technology, to impact everyday lives. Happify Health's clinically-validated platform provides global access to one of the most comprehensive, evidence-based intervention catalog that is available from science, resulting in better health and business outcomes for organizations. For more information, visit www.happifyhealth.com.
