As Akili Interactive preps its ADHD video game therapy for commercial launch – and builds out its new Roblox partnership – it’s tapping commercial veteran Matt Franklin to lead the way.

Franklin will join Akili later this month as president and chief operating officer with a focus on the commercial launch and marketing of EndeavorRx, its FDA-approved cognitive therapy for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, later this year. His duties include overseeing day-to-day operations at Akili across commercial, product, engineering, medical and employee talent.
Franklin was most recently general manager of Exact Sciences’ precision oncology division. Before that he led commercial at Thrive Earlier Detection – acquired by Exact Sciences in 2020 – bringing its early detection multi-cancer blood test to market.
Akili’s EndeavorRx game is approved for 8-to-12-year-olds with roughly 25-minute 5-mission sessions. The racing game ventures through imaginary worlds and problem-solving tasks developed specifically “to target areas of the brain that play a key role in attention function.”
Aliki currently partners with an online telehealth provider for prescribing and doctors are prescribing it in office, however the software company is planning its full release with a big marketing push in the fall. Last year, Akili launched an introductory online marketing campaign with real parents and kids with ADHD who use the software.

In another boost to its marketing efforts, Akili cemented a deal with popular adolescent video gaming platform Roblox in May. The deal connects patients’ EndeavorRx treatment to rewards in the Roblox virtual reality game, but will add new opportunities “as the partnership pilot continues rolling out,” Akili CEO and co-founder Eddie Martucci said in an email interview.
“At Akili, we’re working to challenge traditional perceptions of medicine, while Roblox has led its industry with the creation of a virtual world that brings over 55M people together each day through immersive shared experiences. Together, we have the ability to completely reimagine the patient experience,” he said.
EndeavorRx is Akili’s first product, however, it is planning and testing disease modifying digital therapies in major depressive disorder, autism spectrum disorder, multiple sclerosis and Covid brain fog.
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