Hi friend,
I read a Dr. Seuss quote this morning that stuck with me.
It goes like this…
Unless someone like you,
Cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better.
It's not.
The Lorax was pretty wise. And represents how I feel about the group of people working to improve population mental health. It’s bloody hard, but without people like you, things won’t get better.
If you want to connect with other like-minded people who care (shameless transition), consider joining the Hemingway Community. It’s a vetted community for mental health innovators with over 300 members, online and in-person events and exclusive content. This week, Val Hoffman is joining us to share what digital mental health businesses need to do to show value and ROI in 2026. So, join the community and come along to our event on Thursday.
But apart from that, what’s been happening in the world of mental health innovation?
What happened in mental health last week?
Business News:
⏺️ Oasys raised a $4.6 million seed round to expand its AI-driven operating system for behavioural health clinics. (link)
⏺️ myHappymind announced an investment round from LDC. I’ve previously shared the myHappymind growth story here (it’s awesome). Although I guess they’re technically no longer bootstrapped… (link)
⏺️ MCert was launched as an attempt to create transparency and shared standards in the youth mental health market. The initiative aims to provide science-backed Quality Standards that help decision makers identify digital, subclinical mental health tools that are safe, effective, and equitable for young people. The initiative is funded by Pivotal. (link)
⏺️ OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Health. (link)
⏺️ Anthropic introduced Claude for Healthcare and added new capabilities for life science users of Claude. (link)
⏺️ Birches Health shared clinical outcome data claiming significant improvements in the treatment of patients with gambling disorder. While Birches stated that the findings were “compiled by an independent researcher and based on hundreds of clients”, I was unable to find any research paper to verify their claims, but assuming they are legitimate, they are very impressive. (link)
⏺️ California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed new plans that would move $1 billion in funding from mental health services to housing and treating homeless people. (link)
⏺️ The FDA issued revised guidance on general wellness products. While the guidance is primarily focused on wearables, it suggests it will be more open to AI and other digital mental health products remaining in the wellness category. (link)
⏺️ The FDA also accepted two INDs (Investigational New Drug Applications) from psychedelic drug developers - inhaled 5-MeO-DMT for treatment-resistant depression from GH Research and psilocybin for PTSD from Compass Pathway. (link)
⏺️ Google and Character.AI settled lawsuits accusing AI chatbots of harming and contributing to the suicide of minors. (link)
⏺️ Washington state fined Kaiser Foundation Health Plan $300,000 for failing to comply with federal mental health parity requirements. (link)
⏺️ Emblem Health is being sued for maintaining a ghost network of providers. (link)
Research News:
⏺️ Stanford researchers demonstrated that a new AI model could predict more than 100 health conditions from one night’s sleep. The model was particularly good at predicting mental disorders, with a C-index higher than 0.8. Interestingly, the model was trained on old sleep data that was difficult for humans to analyse. It opens the question: what existing mental health datasets might we want an AI model to analyse? (link)
⏺️ A new post from researchers at Sentio presented a human-in-the-loop evaluation framework for LLMs in mental healthcare. (link)
⏺️ A new meta-analytic review suggested that those with more severe depression probably benefit more from psychotherapy than those with mild depression. (link)
Keep fighting the good fight!
Steve
Founder of Hemingway
P.S. If you’re interested in sponsoring Hemingway and are aligned with our mission, send me an email. I’ve got a few cool ideas for how we can collaborate with organisations in 2026.
