Brooklyn Health Raises $6.5 Million to Modernize Mental Health Measurement in Clinical Trials

Brooklyn Health’s AI-based approach to clinical measurement improves how patient outcomes are measured in central nervous system (CNS) clinical trials

NEW YORK CITY, NY, UNITED STATES, May 27, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Brooklyn Health, a neuroscience technology company focused on objective measurement of mental health, today announced it has secured $6.5 million in seed funding. The round was led by HealthX Ventures, with participation from Metrodora Ventures, Story Ventures, RiverPark Ventures, Laconia Capital, Everywhere Ventures, Hypothesis Studio, Blue Falcon Capital and others.

The funding comes as the company debuts its new electronic clinical outcome assessment (eCOA) solution, Willis. The comprehensive measurement solution automates legacy services through AI, easing access to critical tools necessary for successful drug development.

CNS clinical trials rely on clinical interviews as the primary outcome measure for treatment efficacy. The interviews allow for scoring of symptoms through observation and are necessary to measure change in response to treatment. However, clinical interviews are difficult to standardize, and scoring is subjective and susceptible to biases. This leads to unreliable outcome measures and is associated with placebo response, both of which directly contribute to the high failure rate of CNS clinical trials and cost the industry billions of dollars annually.

Willis addresses these challenges through AI-powered review of clinical interview quality and score accuracy. Clinicians get real-time feedback on interview administration, and pharmaceutical sponsors have visibility into data quality at scale. Prior to Willis, interview review was largely manual, making it impractical and too expensive for most study sponsors.

Willis also represents a long-overdue modernization of the eCOA platform. It includes an intuitive user experience, native clinician training, real-time flagging of concerning events, powerful data analytics and easier communication between clinical sites and pharmaceutical sponsors – packaged in a secure and scalable cloud architecture.

Central to Brooklyn Health’s approach is OpenWillis, an open-source Python library for digital phenotyping, serving as the foundation of its measurement technology. Unlike competitors that claim proprietary algorithms, Brooklyn Health made its core methods available to the scientific community. OpenWillis provides researchers with a simple toolkit for quantifying facial emotions, voice and speech characteristics, motor functioning and other behavioral indicators of mental health. It bridges the gap between academic research and industry applications, fostering a community-driven approach to validation of novel methods in digital phenotyping.

“Measurement is a core issue in neurology and psychiatry,” said Dr. Anzar Abbas, neuroscientist, CEO and founder of Brooklyn Health. “Clinical interviews, the standard for symptom assessment, are fundamentally unreliable and imprecise. Our mission at Brooklyn Health is to solve this measurement problem through accurate, sensitive and objective measures of mental health, lowering the barrier for drug discovery and enabling precision care.”

“Brooklyn Health is directly addressing what has ailed CNS drug development for decades: endpoint quality and placebo response,” said Mark Bakken, Founder and Managing Partner at HealthX Ventures. “They’re modernizing the technology stack for drug development, moving it from services to software, and empowering sponsors with the tools they need to ensure successful studies.”

Brooklyn Health has secured partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies, including Bristol Myers Squibb and Boehringer Ingelheim. Additionally, Brooklyn Health’s technology has been used by researchers at Harvard University, Yale University, UCLA, Columbia University and dozens more. These early adopters see the potential of Brooklyn Health’s approach to improve clinical trial outcomes in pursuit of better treatments for patients.

In a recent analysis Brooklyn Health conducted for one of its pharma customers, it was demonstrated that using Willis to score clinical interviews in a psychiatry study improved separation of drug from placebo by 34% as measured by effect size, highlighting the potential impact of the technology on trial outcomes.

The company will use the new funding to expand its team, enhance Willis’ capabilities and accelerate commercial deployments with pharmaceutical companies. Brooklyn Health is already demonstrating considerable value, with early work showing the potential to improve trial outcomes all while reducing costs.

About Brooklyn Health

Brooklyn Health is solving the measurement problem in mental health through accurate,objective and sensitive measurement of symptoms, enabling precision neuroscience in clinical research and patient care. Through digital phenotyping and AI-powered clinical assessments, the company’s Willis platform is modernizing the technology stack for CNS clinical trials, improving endpoint quality and reducing placebo response. Brooklyn Health’s approach builds trust through open-source methods and scales them through proprietary technology for commercial application. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Brooklyn Health is backed by leading healthcare and technology investors including HealthX Ventures, Metrodora Ventures, Story Ventures, RiverPark Ventures, Laconia Capital, Everywhere Ventures and others. For more information, visit www.brooklyn.health.

###

Anzar Abbas
Brooklyn Health
press@brooklyn.health
Visit us on social media:
LinkedIn