PatientsLikeMe Acquires Online Pain Management Company, ReliefInsite
20,000 Patients Reporting Moderate to Severe Pain on PatientsLikeMe
CAMBRIDGE, MA and NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - February 16, 2010) - Today, PatientsLikeMe, the leading online community for patients with life-changing diseases, announces the acquisition of ReliefInsite, a pioneering online pain management company.
"Right now, there are more than 20,000 patients on PatientsLikeMe experiencing real pain," says Ben Heywood, President and Co-founder of PatientsLikeMe. "By acquiring ReliefInsite, we can improve the way we help patients effectively manage their pain."
Conceived by founder Fred Eberlein in 2000, ReliefInsite's patented online pain management technology developed into a secure HIPAA-compliant platform designed to help patients monitor their pain levels and share that information directly with their doctors.
"I've spent more than a decade inventing and advancing the technology platform at ReliefInsite to help patients manage their pain and improve the patient-doctor relationship," says Eberlein. "I'm excited this work has led me to my new home at PatientsLikeMe, where we can work together to better align industry's interests with improving patients' quality of life."
ReliefInsite will continue to support its existing pharmaceutical and clinical clients as its functionality is integrated into the PatientsLikeMe platform. Eberlein joins the PatientsLikeMe team to lead the companies' integration and enhance product offerings for partners in the life sciences industry.
Pain is a common symptom for people with all of the diseases on PatientsLikeMe, and is most prevalent in diseases like fibromyalgia and multiple sclerosis. In the depression community, thousands of patients report they are currently experiencing "back pain" or "stomach pain," with 50% of those members describing their pain as moderate or severe. Across all of the disease communities, pain is a topic of discussion in more than 61,000 forum posts. Additionally, patients are using hundreds of treatment options to manage their pain from prescription medications, such as Cymbalta and Lyrica, to alternative solutions like acupuncture, massage and physical therapy.
About PatientsLikeMe
PatientsLikeMe (www.patientslikeme.com) is the leading online health community for patients with life-changing conditions. PatientsLikeMe creates new knowledge by charting the real-world course of disease through the shared experiences of patients with ALS, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, HIV, mood conditions (including depression, bipolar, anxiety, OCD and PTSD), fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis, and epilepsy. While patients interact to help improve their outcomes, the data they provide helps researchers learn how these diseases act in the real world. PatientsLikeMe endeavors to create the largest repository of real-world disease information to help accelerate the discovery of new, more effective treatments.