Pear Therapeutics wants to bring prescription digital therapeutics (PDTs) to patients outside the United States, starting with Japan.

The Boston, MA-based company is working with SoftBank, a multinational conglomerate and Japan's leading communication and information technology service provider, to develop a Japanese-language digital therapeutic for the treatment of sleep/wake disorders.

This strategic initiative is a part of Pear’s strategy to commercialize digital therapeutics in international markets. Pear will develop digital therapeutic applications for sleep/wake disorders for the Japanese market, and SoftBank will investigate the Japanese market potential for those applications. SoftBank also has an option to negotiate an exclusive license for Pear's digital therapeutics for sleep/wake disorders in Japan.

Of all adults in Japan, 20% are chronically sleep deprived and 15% feel excessively sleepy during the day, according to the Japanese Association of Preventive Medicine for Adult Disease.

"The Japanese market has a large unmet need in treating people with sleep disorders,” said Corey McCann, MD, PhD, president and CEO at Pear. “This opportunity fits squarely in our strategy to bring our PDTs to patients around the globe.”

Pear Therapeutics, a company that went public through a Special Purpose Acquisition Corporation merger last year, sits atop a growing prescrition digital therapeutics market, according to analysts of the space.

“Pear is a trailblazer in prescription digital therapeutics, with three commercial, FDA-authorized products, expanding payor coverage, and a long product pipeline," Marie Thibault, a medtech analyst at BTIG and a former managing editor of MD+DI, wrote in a report published Jan. 3, 2022.

Recently, in response to Pear's application, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) established a new code to describe prescription digital behavioral therapy, FDA cleared, per course of treatment. The code includes prescription digital therapeutics such as Pear's reSET, reSET-O, and Somryst, which are FDA authorized for the treatment of substance use disorder, opioid user disorder, and chronic insomnia, respectively. The code is scheduled to become effective on April 1.