Akili links with US academia on AKL-T01 as treatment for 'COVID brain fog'

USA-headquartered digital medicines company Akili Interactive today announced collaborations with Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Vanderbilt University Medical Center, to evaluate Akili digital therapeutic AKL-T01 as a treatment for patients with cognitive dysfunction following COVID-19 (also known as “COVID brain fog”). There are currently no approved treatments for cognitive impairments in COVID-19 survivors.

Under each collaboration, Akili, a PureTech Health (Nasdaq: PRTC) founded entity, will work with research teams at each institution to conduct two separate randomized, controlled clinical studies evaluating AKL-T01’s ability to target and improve cognitive functioning in COVID-19 survivors who have exhibited a deficit in cognition. AKL-T01 is the first and only digital therapeutic specifically designed to improve attention function. The organizations aim to begin clinical recruitment for the studies in the next month.

Since being named a global pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020, clinicians continue to learn about the vast ways in which COVID-19 manifests in patients. Evidence is mounting on long-term neurological and cognitive symptoms that can persist in some COVID-19 patients after initial diagnosis, even after the virus is no longer detected in the body.