The Challenge

Stimulant use and addiction is a large and growing problem in the U.S. with disproportionate presence in low-income communities. Stimulant addiction affects 14 million Americans, with the methamphetamine crisis growing at 25% year over year. While the opioid epidemic has dominated headlines and policy conversations in recent years, stimulant overdose deaths have quietly, but dramatically, increased over the last decade (650% increase for meth-related deaths), and meth is now the leading cause of drug-related death west of the Mississippi.

Unlike with opioid use disorder, there is no agreed-upon standard of care such as MAT (medication assisted treatment) for stimulant use disorder. This lack of standard of care for stimulant addiction exacerbates high medical comorbidities and results in high costs to the U.S. health care system to care for stimulant users. More often than not, the standard of care for people addicted to stimulants is criminalization, which exacerbates and reinforces the adverse impact of stimulant use in low-income communities.

The Innovation

Affect Therapeutics provides a rewards-driven mobile platform combining a digital therapeutic app with an integrated care team to revolutionize standard of care for stimulant addiction. It includes: 

–Proven behavioral incentives to meet patients where they are and provide the tools and incentives they need.

–Real-time treatment improvements that drive positive outcomes and reduce health care costs.

–Personalized coaching and empathetic counseling to provide accountability and support at a dramatically lower cost and with better outcomes than traditional intensive outpatient programs. 

Why Acumen Invested

Substance use disorders are a national health crisis with a disproportionate impact on low-income Americans. Innovation in treatment design and delivery has focused on generalized substance addiction or opioid use disorder, but these approaches are not effective for treating individuals addicted to stimulants. Affect’s approach leveraging contingency management will inform a new standard of care for stimulant abuse to deliver lasting patient impact at lower cost to the healthcare system.