Bringing Clarity to the Gray Areas of Mental Health Measurement: Why We Invested in Brooklyn Health
How AI-powered tools can turn subjectivity into science
By Laura Hilty, Principal at HealthX Ventures
At HealthX Ventures, we invest in founders who are tackling healthcare’s most pressing challenges with clarity, courage, and cutting-edge technology. Our recent investment in Brooklyn Health is a prime example. Mental health care has long suffered from vague, subjective measurement—especially in CNS (central nervous system) clinical trials, where inconsistent data can delay or derail promising treatments. Brooklyn Health is addressing this head-on with AI-powered tools that make clinical interviews more objective, consistent, and scalable. Here’s why we believe this work has the potential to transform both drug development and patient care.
A Market Ripe for Innovation in Mental Health Measurement
The eCOA (electronic clinical outcome assessment) market—especially for CNS therapeutic areas—hasn’t seen meaningful innovation in a long time. It’s historically been slow, expensive, and heavily reliant on manual processes. That’s a problem for pharma companies, who are highly motivated to run faster trials and generate more precise results.
Brooklyn Health is changing that. Their platform makes it possible to objectively measure what’s historically been subjective—especially in mental health assessments. Rather than relying solely on inconsistent, manual scoring during clinical interviews, they’ve developed a way to systematize and scale this process using AI. The result is faster, higher-fidelity data that improves patient selection, reduces placebo effects, and helps sponsors better demonstrate efficacy.
For pharma, this translates to improved trial outcomes, clearer evidence, and potentially faster time-to-market—which can mean millions of dollars in value every day. Even more importantly, it can open the door to more targeted treatments that serve patients better.
A Founder Who Balances Conviction with Humility
From our earliest conversations, it was clear that Dr. Anzar Abbas brought a rare mix of scientific depth, clarity of vision, and approachability. He’s a neuroscientist with strong conviction around the problem he’s solving—but he also listens, immediately executes on feedback, and surrounds himself with smart advisors.
One moment that stood out to us was when he pulled out his iPad and essentially turned into “Professor Anzar”—walking us through complex scientific concepts in a way that was both technically sound and inherently accessible. That kind of communication skill is essential when you’re building something novel in a space as nuanced as mental health and clinical trials.
Traction That Speaks Volumes in the Pharma World
Brooklyn Health’s customers—pharma companies running studies in areas like depression, anxiety, and Alzheimer’s—aren’t just using the platform. They’re asking for more. They’ve seen the value in automating what was once manual, and they’re expanding those partnerships to new indications and use cases.
One real-world scenario that really crystallized the value for us: in many mental health studies, patients are often enrolled even if they don’t meet the precise clinical criteria. Physicians, often with the best intentions, may slightly inflate symptom scores to give patients access to a promising treatment. But when that happens too often, it muddies the results and makes it harder to prove whether a drug is truly effective.
Brooklyn Health’s platform helps mitigate that by offering more objective assessments—ensuring that the right patients are enrolled, which improves trial integrity and increases the likelihood of success.
Building for Trust and Impact
Another thing we admire about Brooklyn Health is their commitment to transparency. They’ve open-sourced the scientific underpinnings of their technology through a project called OpenWillis, allowing researchers to validate and build upon their work. While their specific application in eCOA remains proprietary, this open-science approach fosters trust—something that’s essential when you’re building tools to assess mental health.
We believe Brooklyn Health is positioned to become the go-to provider for CNS eCOA. But beyond that, we believe their work will help bring more effective, precisely targeted therapies to market—benefiting not just the industry, but the patients who need them most.
Learn more about Brooklyn Health at brooklyn.health.
Photo by Zachary Keimig on Unsplash