HypnoVR acquires Oncomfort

This strategic takeover confirms HypnoVR’s position as Europe’s leading provider of virtual reality-based digital therapies to treat pain and anxiety, with solutions deployed in more than 550 hospitals

Synergies with Oncomfort will broaden HypnoVR’s product range, expand its client base and strengthen its patent portfolio, as well as providing a firm foothold in Belgium

HypnoVR plans to increase its European and international presence with the market release of second-generation machine learning-based biofeedback digital therapies in 2024

Strasbourg, France, October 4, 2023 – HypnoVR, pioneer and European leader in digital therapies to manage pain and anxiety, today announces it has acquired Belgian company Oncomfort, the inventor of Digital Sedation™, a pharmacological method of relieving patients’ pain and anxiety. The financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.

This acquisition strengthens HypnoVR’s position as the European leader in digital therapies for pain and anxiety and should speed up the commercial roll-out of its solutions in Europe. Over 550 European healthcare facilities are now using HypnoVR technology, including more than one hundred in Belgium. A total of 200,000 patients have already been treated using its digital therapies that include software and a VR headset. The company has the most advanced clinical validation in its field, with more than fifty clinical trials having demonstrated the efficacy of the HypnoVR and Oncomfort therapies to manage pain and anxiety, reduce medication use and improve the care pathway.

“The Oncomfort acquisition is a highly strategic step for HypnoVR that reinforces our position as the European leader in digital therapies to treat pain and anxiety and provides an ever-increasing number of healthcare facilities and patients with access to these advanced technologies. Our vision is one that Oncomfort shares, based on the clinical validity of digital therapeutic solutions and the potential of technology to deliver them to as many people as possible. HypnoVR pioneered the development and roll-out of virtual reality-based medical hypnosis solutions in France and Europe, and we intend to ramp up this work on an international scale,” said Nicolas Schaettel, president and co-founder of HypnoVR.

Oncomfort was founded in 2017 to develop Digital Sedation™, an innovative medical device combining the capabilities of virtual reality with expertise in medical hypnosis. Digital Sedation™ is a CE-marked product designed to offer patients an alternative or supplementary treatment to drugs, for managing pain and anxiety.

“Both HypnoVR and Oncomfort are pioneering companies in digital sedation and have been built on shared values, scientific validation and strict adherence to regulations to ensure compliance with the requirements for digital medical devices. I firmly believe that our acquisition by HypnoVR will create worthwhile collaborations to help healthcare professionals go further in adopting this solution as the standard of care for relieving pain and anxiety, benefiting a growing number of patients,” said Diane Jooris, founder of Oncomfort.

HypnoVR has a subsidiary in Basel, Switzerland and has just opened an office in Belgium, where a number of Oncomfort staff will be based.

HypnoVR has advanced, ambitious R&D projects in progress, including the development of a
next-generation therapeutic virtual reality solution with biofeedback. This system offers a real-time virtual hypnosedation session adapted to the patient’s physiological condition. Patents are being filed to protect its intellectual property. Second-generation products are expected to reach the market in 2024.

Advisors

Intellectual Property: ICOSA

Legal: Agio Legal, Nicolas Van Der Borght, Barrister, Jean-Philippe Jacob, Barrister (YARDS avocats)

About HypnoVR’s medical hypnosis digital therapy

HypnoVR has developed a solution to treat pain and anxiety using medical hypnosis and immersive virtual reality. It is a certified medical device, with applications in settings such as the operating room (for anesthesia), and in a large variety of medical specialties such as dental care, oncology, urology, gynecology and medical imaging. It can also be used to improve caregivers’ quality of life at work.

About HypnoVR

HypnoVR specializes in the development of digital therapies combining medical hypnosis and virtual reality, to manage pain and anxiety. The company designs, develops and markets software solutions and medical devices that serve as innovative hypnosedation tools used to improve quality of care and patient comfort. HypnoVR’s solutions can be seamlessly integrated into multimodal accelerated rehabilitation procedures to help to improve the care provided throughout the entire treatment pathway. They can be used in a range of medical fields including anesthesia, critical care, surgery, dentistry and imaging. HypnoVR’s technology received CE marking as a class 1 medical device in September 2018. The company was ISO 13485:2016 certified in April 2021.

Founded in Strasbourg in 2016 by anesthetists and hypnotherapists Dr. Denis Graff and Dr. Chloé Chauvin and entrepreneur Nicolas Schaettel, the company has raised €6 million ($6.38M) since its inception.

www.hypnovr.io