Winnipeg, Canada-based Cerebra, a sleep-focused digital health company, has completed two new licensing agreements. The first is with Magdy Younes, MD, FRCPC, PhD, of Younes Respiratory Technologies Inc for sleep diagnostic software including a series of proprietary, advanced digital sleep analysis metrics used by leading researchers around the world and available in western Canada through Cerebra’s sleep analysis service. The second expands Cerebra’s Canadian distribution partnership agreement with Norah Vincent, PhD, to bring her cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) product for insomnia, RestEd, to Manitoba.
The renewed and revised Younes licensing agreement secures Cerebra rights to a collection of proprietary sleep metrics and digital biomarkers that is viewed by many as the world’s best system for digital sleep analysis. These metrics include the proprietary Odds Ratio Product (ORP Sleep Depth), an objective, fully-digital continuous measurement of sleep depth, which the company says helps experts gain a deeper understanding of sleep, sleep disorders, and treatment options. The license grants exclusive use of these metrics for home sleep testing services including use with the Cerebra sleep testing hardware, in-lab and in-home clinical sleep diagnosis, and its application in consumer sleep devices for personal sleep monitoring.
ORP Sleep Depth has been validated in dozens of studies. By analyzing brain activity while we sleep, it can be applied to help understand the impact and severity of common sleep disorders, including sleep apnea and insomnia. ORP Sleep Depth expresses how likely you are to wake at any moment and is uniquely able to detect the effect of subtle changes in your environment as well as describe your natural ability to return to sleep after a momentary disturbance.
RestEd, an online CBT program for insomnia, was developed by Norah Vincent, PhD, a clinical psychologist who treats sleep difficulties and has been performing research in the sleep treatment field for many years. The Canadian Sleep Society reports about 10% of the adult population in Canada experience persistent insomnia and an additional 20-25% reports occasional insomnia symptoms. RestEd makes treatment easily available to those struggling with poor sleep and is now available from Cerebra in all of Canada, outside of Quebec.
“These licensing agreements reinforce Cerebra’s global leadership position in digital sleep analysis,” says Cerebra CEO Dawson Reimer, in a release. “This in conjunction with treatment tools such as RestEd, provides a unique opportunity to help people achieve their best possible sleep.”
The Younes license agreement includes rights to Cerebra digital sleep analysis software and Michele, an FDA/EU-CE marked/Health Canada approved sleep diagnostic software that is one of the most validated systems for auto-sleep staging. The Michele software is established for clinical use in sleep diagnosis and EEG analysis, and researchers are also investigating use of the underlying digital sleep metrics in a variety of other clinical conditions such as dementia, psychiatric disorders, and in-hospital patient monitoring, as well as in supporting future systems for personal sleep analysis and optimization.
