Neurodiagnostics company Beacon Biosignals has acquired French sleep monitoring company Dreem for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will see Dreem’s clinically validated hardware integrated with Beacon’s electroencephalogram (EEG) analytics platform, with the goal of supporting the development of precision medicines and improving patient outcomes in sleep-related conditions and neurological disorders.
As part of the acquisition, Beacon says it has secured additional financing from its syndicate of Series A investors, led by General Catalyst.
Dreem, known for its sleep monitoring devices, adds to Beacon’s capabilities in data acquisition and clinical trial operations. With a robust intellectual property portfolio, Dreem has recorded over two million nights of sleep since launching in 2014 and has received more than $57 million in funding.
The Dreem 3 headset is a patient-centric sleep headband that has been extensively utilized in biopharma-sponsored clinical studies. It has undergone clinical validation against standard polysomnography, offering a lightweight and comfortable design optimized for EEG signal quality and operational efficiency. By integrating Dreem’s state-of-the-art wearables with Beacon’s analytics platform, the acquisition unlocks the potential for AI-driven EEG analytics, polysomnogram endpoint assessments, and clinical-grade at-home sleep monitoring.
“It has always been our vision to expand clinical-grade brain monitoring to usher in the era of precision therapies in sleep medicine and the most difficult-to-treat neuropsychiatric conditions,” said Dr Jacob Donoghue, CEO of Beacon. “There’s no substitute for recording directly from the brain, and the Dreem device will accelerate Beacon’s scale-up of validated sleep endpoints across a wide range of clinical trials.”
Beacon’s machine learning platform is designed to analyze large EEG datasets with unparalleled speed and scalability. Sleep physiology has become a crucial area of focus for EEG-based biomarkers to accelerate drug development in sleep medicine, psychiatric disorders, and neurologic diseases. Quantitative sleep metrics derived from EEG data are increasingly recognized as important endpoints for various conditions, including primary hypersomnia, insomnia disorders, and psychiatric disorders characterized by disordered sleep physiology, such as major depressive disorder. Furthermore, disordered sleep symptoms have a profound impact on patient quality of life and patient-reported outcomes.
Beacon says that EEG, as a direct assessment of neuronal activity, surpasses surrogate methods like actigraphy as the clinical gold standard. Beacon’s platform excels in sleep EEG analytics, providing both macroarchitecture assessments through automated sleep scoring and detailed microarchitecture analysis of features like arousals and spindles. Longitudinal monitoring in the comfort of patients’ homes is poised to advance the understanding of sleep physiology beyond the limitations of assessments conducted in artificial sleep lab settings.
“We are excited to join Beacon Biosignals and propel the Dreem device into a new era of impact, unlocking the potential for revolutionary advancements in clinical trials and treatments for disorders like narcolepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia and beyond,” said Dr Pierrick Arnal, Chief Science Officer at Dreem.
