When he pitches Help Method Inc., James Drage opens by contrasting the derision showered on Toronto Mayor Rob Ford over his addiction problems with the outpouring of compassion that resulted from the news he has cancer.
In fact, said Drage, addicts have as little control over their addiction as cancer patients have over their disease. And Lawrencetown, N.S.-based Help Method is working to personalize treatment of the disease.
“Addiction is a disease of the brain and only recently has technology allowed us to treat the gaps in the connectivity of the brain,” Drage said at the BioInnovation Challenge last week.
Help Method is being spun out of Ledgehill Addiction Treatment and Recovery Centre, in which Drage is a partner and director. The startup uses brain scans to personalize addiction treatment – a process it calls targeted addiction treatment. In a healthy brain, the mental functions between the different regions of the brain are all inter-connected, and a brain scan can pick out the links. However, scans also reveal gaps in addicts’ brain connectivity.
Help Method aims to understand the mental processes of addicts so it can customize treatment for each addict.
“Understanding the connections in the brain is the key to understanding someone’s addiction,” said Drage, who is also the principal of Halifax-based Atlantic Venture Capital and has been involved in other startups. “Two different types of alcoholics need two different types of treatment.”
Situated in the Annapolis Valley, Ledgehill is a treatment centre for addicts that aims to customize treatment for each patient, taking into consideration his or her personal situation and addiction. The facility customarily offers 45-day programs, though its treatments run from 30 to 90 days.
Seeking better ways of treating addiction, the Ledgehill team was introduced to the idea of doing brain scans of patients before and after their treatment. They could be given a printed copy to help them understand their affliction. They could hang it on the wall for inspiration. But as the team began to understand more about scans and the technology that has developed just in the last two years, they realized these scans could help with treatment in profound ways.
Ledgehill began to work with a few partners, including the Halifax medical imaging group Biotic and Halifax-based Brain Repair Centre. What they have learned so far is there are different brain patterns for different types of addiction. They believe there are at least five types of alcoholics and four types of gamblers. By understanding someone’s brain patterns, Help Method aims to design specific treatment programs to suit the individual.
This startup is tackling a huge issue. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 10 percent of the deaths of people aged 20 to 64 are related to addiction. About 2.5 million people in North America are treated for addiction each year, and addiction costs society about $500 billion a year in North America alone.
Help Method plans to conduct about 1,000 scans of addicts’ brains next year, mainly for research purposes. It then plans to work on 10,000 scans in 2016 and 100,000 in 2017.
It plans to link up with as many of the 4,000 addiction treatment centres in North America as possible. These centres will then have their patients undergo brain scans, which will be transmitted electronically to Help Method. The Nova Scotia company will respond with an analysis and a program customized for each patient.
“In three to five years,” said Drage, “we hope this will be the standard of care in addiction treatment.”
Entrevestor receives financial support from government agencies that support start-up companies in Atlantic Canada. The sponsoring agencies play no role in determining which companies are featured in this column nor do they have the right to review columns before they are published.
