NeuroStar
A Non-Drug Alternative To Improve Depression

Depressive disorders are debilitating for patients, impacting their quality of life, forcing them to seek out different treatment options before finding one that fits. Medications are often the first line of defense in treating patients with depression and may be initially effective for some patients. Unfortunately, even after beginning medications, many patients struggle to find the right medication and/or right dosing, to treat their illness with minimal side effects. This is a cycle that results in patients being frustrated and feeling increasingly without hope. What many patients don’t realize is that there is a non-drug treatment that may help, called NeuroStar Advanced Therapy for Mental Health. NeuroStar is an option for individuals suffering from major depressive disorder who have not responded to medication and do not see a clear path to feeling better.

Keith Sullivan, CEO & President of Neuronetics states, “Our goal is for NeuroStar to provide a solution for people who have tried prescription medications, and their depression still isn’t being managed. Everyone deserves to have access to a treatment that will give them relief from their symptoms and allow them to live a fulfilled life.”

NeuroStar is an FDA-cleared, non-drug, non-invasive therapy that assists individuals suffering from depression and helps them attain long-term remission from symptoms. Unlike antidepressant medications, which have to travel through your entire body, NeuroStar targets the source of depression in the brain, where it helps activate the natural function of the brain’s neurotransmitters using a non-invasive magnetic field. During a NeuroStar session, the treating clinician positions the treatment coil over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain known to affect mood. Through the treatment coil, the NeuroStar System generates a highly focused, pulsed magnetic field, similar in type and strength to those produced by an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine.

Our goal is for NeuroStar to provide a solution for people who have tried prescription medications, and their depression still isn’t being managed. Everyone deserves to have access to a treatment that will give them relief from their symptoms and allow them to live a fulfilled life

This magnet can stimulate cortical neurons non-invasively. The treatment requires 36 sessions in seven weeks, five days a week, each session with a duration of 19 minutes. NeuroStar consistently and precisely provides the recommended amount of transcranial magnetic stimulation to the selected mood-regulating brain areas—the same areas that are underactive in people suffering from depression— across the series of sessions.

The efficacy of the treatments aside, there remain challenges in educating patients and physicians, as well as in access to treatment. Among these is the reality that many depression patients remain undiagnosed, with only 50 percent receiving any treatment. If a person is diagnosed and begins to take antidepressants, the chance of remission is only 27 percent, and as medications cease to work for patients, the chance of remission is further reduced to 6.9 percent.

In additional to educating patients, NeuroStar also prioritizes supporting physicians and their practices. NeuroStar’s “5-STARS to Success” program teaches physicians and their office to staff how to communicate around and utilize NeuroStar in their office, to ensure the best patient outcomes. The program covers clinical, marketing, and awareness aspects using differentiating tools and techniques that practices can quickly and easily implement. Neuronetics’ five-year plan is to become one of the top Med-Tech companies, aiming for growth of 25 percent each year and looking forward to expanding outside the United States. Neuronetics intends to deliver technology solutions, not only for the treatment of depression but also for a broader range of disorders, to improve people’s lives for the future.