TRI recruits first 10 patients in 30 patient mental health trial
Our AI mental health Investment TrivarX (ASX: TRI) is now one-third of the way through recruitment for its clinical trial to detect mental health issues through sleep.
This trial is in partnership with the US Department of Veterans Affairs and will recruit 30 veterans with suspected sleep apnea over a 12-week period.
The goal of the trial is for TRI to evaluate if its AI algorithm is effective at using sleep data to screen for a current major depressive episode (cMDE) and sleep disorders.
AND we should know the results from the trial ~12 weeks after the last patient is recruited.
What is different about this trial compared to the previous trials that TRI has run is that it will test if TRI’s algorithm works with a single-channel ECG.
(a single-channel ECG is what is used in devices like smart watches).
This smaller trial follows from a promising Phase 2 study that demonstrated 87% sensitivity and 67% specificity in identifying a cMDE.
If successful, it could pave the way for commercialisation, partnerships with wearable device manufacturers, and expanded use in screening for other mental health conditions using non-invasive, AI-based tools.
Mental health in the news, causing big problems for insurance companies
Mental health has been in the news recently in Australia with a new report coming out that mental health claims grew from $1.2 billion in 2019 to $2.2 billion in 2024.
It is a big challenge for health insurance companies that are now spending a lot of pooled capital on paying out for mental health challenges:
(Source)
Labor MP Mike Freelander has called out overdiagnosis of mental health problems as the reason for an unsustainable surge in life insurance and workers’ compensation claims in an article with the AFR:
(Source)
This is one of the big challenges that TRI is trying to solve, rather than a standard patient questionnaire to evaluate and screen for mental health… sleep could be the unlock that provides biological evidence to diagnose mental health conditions.
You can read more about TRI’s current clinical trial in our recent deep dive note:
