Trellus Health. Regulatory News (TRLS)

Trellus Health plc

("Trellus Health" or the "Company")

Trellus IBD program to be offered through New York Medicaid Health Plan

Demonstration project in partnership with New York State health insurer with over 1.8 million members

LONDON, U.K. AND NEW YORK, U.S. (13 February 2023): Trellus Health plc (AIM: TRLS), which is commercializing a scientifically validated, personalized resilience-driven self-management solution for chronic health conditions at their intersection with mental health, announces that the Trellus Resilience Training and Self-Management Solution for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (the "Trellus IBD program") will be made available under an initial demonstration project with a New York-based health insurance company (the "Partner") with more than 1.8 million members.

The Trellus IBD program is designed to enable IBD patients to take charge of their health needs, access behavioral and emotional support in between office visits, and ultimately to improve outcomes. The use of digital tools for self-care and ongoing coaching under the Trellus IBD program aligns strongly with the Partner's goal of providing value-driven, optimized care that is available with equal opportunity to all.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Trellus IBD program is now included as a health plan benefit to certain Partner members under its Medicaid managed care plan, to coordinate and deliver personalized behavioral, emotional and nutritional support for the Partner's Medicaid IBD patients remotely via digital solutions, and provide access to an expert resilience team via telehealth. The Partner will pay for such members' enrolment and participation in the Trellus IBD Program, with a targeted maximum enrolment of 50 patients. The agreement will run for an initial 12-month term and can be extended by mutual agreement, with patient enrolment to begin imminently.

This partnership is the culmination of the final contracting phase with a New York Medicaid health plan which was referred to in the Company's interim results release issued on 30 September 2022, and represents further execution of Trellus Health's strategy to expand access to its self-management solution through both its Direct-to-Consumer ("D2C") and Business-to-Business-to-Consumer ("B2B2C") models. This B2B2C partnership will provide Trellus Health with further data to strengthen the evidence base of the ability of the Trellus IBD program to provide improvements in outcomes and on reductions in the cost of caring for GI patients. Meeting these shared core objectives is expected to support the wider rollout of the Trellus IBD solution. 

Dr. Marla Dubinsky, Chief Executive Officer of Trellus Health, said: "I am delighted to sign this B2B2C agreement with this New York State-based health insurer to offer the Trellus IBD program to up to 50 of its members over a 12-month period. Access to the Trellus IBD program will enable the insurer to empower its members to learn to self-manage their chronic conditions with confidence, and improve health outcomes at a significantly lower cost. We look forward to reviewing the data from this initial 12-month term, which will further strengthen our evidence base as we continue discussions with other regional and national health plans, employers, health systems, GI provider networks and pharmaceutical companies.

"We look forward to working with this Health Plan to evaluate further how the Trellus IBD program can achieve better health outcomes, and how enhanced condition management and quality of life measures can be supported by improvements in resilience using our approach."

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About Trellus Health plc (www.trellushealth.com)

Trellus Health (LSE: TRLS) is the first resilience based digital health company focused on the intersection of chronic illness and mental health. Trellus Health integrates its proprietary resilience-based methodology with the technology, tools and team to deliver a whole-person technology-enhanced experience that results in relieving disease burden, building self-management skills and promoting individual health behaviors that enable thriving in the face of a chronic condition. Through its TrellusElevate™ connected health platform and companion App, the company addresses both physical and behavioral health together, in context, to improve outcomes and reduce healthcare costs across the healthcare ecosystem.

The Company is initially focused on Inflammatory bowel disease ("IBD"), which includes the chronic incurable conditions of Crohn's Disease and ulcerative colitis, and shortly Irritable Bowel Syndrome ("IBS"), but, given the common struggles of self-management, considers its approach to have potential utility and demand across many chronic conditions.

The TrellusElevate™ platform is the Company's proprietary connected health platform that incorporates the GRITT™ methodology and learnings on resilience from clinical research and practice conducted at the Mount Sinai IBD Center for more than five years. This proprietary, resilience-driven methodology has been scientifically validated to demonstrate meaningful improvements in patient outcomes, 71% reduction in Emergency Department (A&E) visits, and 94% reduction in unplanned hospitalisations, which the directors of the Company believe indicates the potential for significant cost savings for healthcare payers. Patients with IBD treated using the methodology also experienced a 49% reduction in required opioid use and a 73% reduction in corticosteroid use 12 months following starting the program2.

The Company was founded by Mount Sinai faculty members Marla C. Dubinsky, MD and Laurie Keefer, PhD, both with decades of combined experience in IBD and psychogastroenterology, respectively. Trellus Health's patent-pending GRITT™ resilience assessment and personalized resilience training methodology was developed and validated at the Mount Sinai Health System to build resilience and wellness for improved outcomes at lower cost.

Shares in Trellus Health were admitted to trading on AIM in May 2021, under the ticker TRLS. For more information on Trellus Health, visit:  www.trellushealth.com

1) Source: https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/about/costs/index.htm)

2) Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1542356521012258)

About the Trellus IBD program

Trellus Health is pioneering a scientifically validated, personalized resilience-driven self-management solution for chronic health conditions which addresses the intersection of chronic illness with mental health, estimated to cost the US economy $3.7 trillion annually.1 The Trellus approach transforms chronic condition management and changes the lives of patients living with debilitating, incurable conditions, initially focused on IBD, including Crohn's Disease and ulcerative colitis, and shortly IBS, but with potential utility and demand across many chronic conditions.

The Trellus IBD program is a self-management solution driven by personalized resilience training. The program empowers and enables members to manage their condition by teaching them to set goals, actively identify challenges and solve problems associated with their condition, driving a change of health behavior to deliver improved outcomes and health status at lower cost.

Patients with IBD face many challenges which are common across many chronic conditions: the management of complex medication regimens, dealing with symptoms and disability, monitoring physical indicators, maintaining proper levels of nutrition, adjusting to the psychological and social demands including difficult lifestyle adjustments, as well as engaging in effective interactions with health providers.

Trellus's personalized resilience-driven self-management training programs are designed specifically for people looking to overcome these challenges. The aim is to enable patients and their physicians to achieve better quality patient outcomes at a lower cost to health plans and employers, and the proprietary resilience method has been proven to reduce unplanned hospitalizations by 94% at the Mount Sinai IBD Center, New York, NY.2