Digital health pioneer Pear Therapeutics files for bankruptcy, lays off workers

San Francisco, April 10 (IANS) The US-based firm Pear Therapeutics, a company focused on developing and commercialising software-based medicine, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as it struggled to get insurers to pay for its technology and laid off 92 per cent of its workforce, or about 170 employees.

In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company mentioned that it plans to maintain a ‘transition team’ of around 15 employees.

“Today is a difficult day for Pear Therapeutics. We announced that Pear voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 and will seek to sell assets through a sales process. We also announced a reduction in force, including me. This is certainly not the outcome I envisioned when I founded Pear in 2013,” Pear’s CEO Corey McCann wrote in a LinkedIn post.

The company said that all terminated employees have received two weeks’ salary as severance and were asked to sign a separation agreement, which includes a general release of claims against the company.

Meanwhile, US-based software company Amplitude has laid off 13 per cent of its workforce, or 99 employees, amid tough macroeconomic conditions.

“On behalf of myself and the co-founders, I want to share the most difficult decision we’ve had to make since starting Amplitude over ten years ago. Today, we are reducing the size of our global team by 13 per cent,” wrote Spenser Skates, CEO and Co-founder, in a blogpost.

–IANS

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