Hope Therapeutics, an NRx Pharmaceuticals Subsidiary (Nasdaq:NRXP), Announces Strategic Partnership with Emobot to Integrate its AI-Powered “Depression Thermometer” Across its Interventional Psychiatry Network

Rhea-AI Summary

Hope Therapeutics (Nasdaq: NRXP) announced a strategic partnership with Emobot to deploy its AI-powered Depression Thermometer across Hope’s interventional psychiatry clinics, integrating passive smartphone monitoring of facial expressions, vocal tone, and actigraphy to detect early relapse in TRD.

Preliminary pooled validation across three prospective studies showed concordance with MADRS (r=0.89) and PHQ-9 (r=0.83); Hope expects the tool to enable timely "recapture" interventions and improve patient outcomes.

Positive

• Concordance with MADRS r=0.89 in pooled validation
• High sensitivity vs PHQ-9 correlation r=0.83 in pooled studies
• Aimed to double patient success rates by enabling timely recapture interventions
• Large-scale clinical integration across Hope’s interventional psychiatry clinic network

Negative

• High relapse rate in TRD: ~50% relapse within 6–12 months
• Evidence preliminary: pooled post-hoc validation and a preprint; top-line trials still pending

News Market Reaction – NRXP

-4.57%

6 alerts

-4.57% News Effect

-9.5% Trough in 3 hr 15 min

-$3M Valuation Impact

$72.42M Market Cap

0.2x Rel. Volume

On the day this news was published, NRXP declined 4.57%, reflecting a moderate negative market reaction. Argus tracked a trough of -9.5% from its starting point during tracking. Our momentum scanner triggered 6 alerts that day, indicating moderate trading interest and price volatility. This price movement removed approximately $3M from the company's valuation, bringing the market cap to $72.42M at that time.

Data tracked by StockTitan Argus on the day of publication.

Key Figures

TRD relapse rate: 50% of patients Relapse window: 6–12 months Neuroplastic therapy response: Nearing 90% +5 more

8 metrics

TRD relapse rate 50% of patients Relapse within 6–12 months in Treatment-Resistant Depression care

Relapse window 6–12 months Typical timeframe in which about half of TRD patients relapse

Neuroplastic therapy response Nearing 90% Reported response rates for modern neuroplastic interventions

Prospective studies 3 studies Clinical validation of Emobot platform in EMC1, EMC2-FR and EMC2-BD

MADRS concordance r=0.89, p<.05 Within-person concordance of Emobot score with MADRS scale

PHQ-9 sensitivity r=0.83, p<.001 Sensitivity to change relative to PHQ-9 scores

Experience in digital health 15+ years Team’s experience supporting similar digital health applications

Price change -7.98% NRXP price move over the last 24 hours before this news

Market Reality Check

Price: $2.13 Vol: Volume 781,931 is slightl...

normal vol

$2.13 Last Close

Volume Volume 781,931 is slightly below the 20-day average of 861,696, suggesting no unusual trading activity ahead of this news. normal

Technical Shares at $2.19 are trading below the 200-day MA of $2.59 and about 43% under the 52-week high of $3.84.

Peers on Argus

NRXP is down 7.98% while several biotech peers such as IMMX (-9.14%), MGX (-4.35...

NRXP is down 7.98% while several biotech peers such as IMMX (-9.14%), MGX (-4.35%), and ABVC (-5.61%) are also lower, but SLGL is up 4.32%. Mixed peer moves and a scanner flag of no sector momentum point to a stock-specific reaction.

Historical Context

5 past events · Latest: Mar 24 (Positive)

Pattern 5 events

Date	Event	Sentiment	Move	Catalyst
Mar 24	Full-year results	Positive	+20.3%	Reported 2025 results, cash position, reduced operating loss, and regulatory progress.
Mar 19	Earnings announcement	Neutral	-3.2%	Announced date and details for full-year 2025 earnings call and corporate update.
Mar 17	FDA bioequivalence	Positive	-6.3%	FDA indicated no bioequivalence deficiencies for preservative-free ketamine ANDA pending review.
Mar 16	Regulatory pathway	Positive	+12.1%	FDA Type C minutes confirmed NDA path for NRX-100 using existing trials and real-world data.
Mar 09	Clinic opening	Positive	+1.8%	HOPE opened Palm Beach clinic offering one-day interventional psychiatry treatments.

Pattern Detected

Recent news with clear positive regulatory or clinical angles has more often aligned with positive price reactions, with only one notable divergence on FDA bioequivalence communication.

Recent Company History

Over the past month, NRXP has issued several clinically and strategically important updates. On Mar 9, HOPE opened a Palm Beach clinic with neuroplastic therapies, followed by a Mar 16 FDA Type C meeting outcome outlining a path to an NDA for NRX-100. A Mar 17 bioequivalence update from the FDA’s Office of Generic Drugs and Mar 24 full-year 2025 results, including $7.8M year-end cash and reduced operating loss, framed a transitioning story toward commercial operations. Today’s AI partnership fits the ongoing build-out of the HOPE clinic network and digital capabilities.

Regulatory & Risk Context

Active S-3 Shelf · $150,000,000

Shelf Active

Active S-3 Shelf Registration 2025-12-12

$150,000,000 registered capacity

An effective S-3/A shelf filed on 2025-12-12 allows NRXP to offer up to $150,000,000 of various securities over time, with $78,644,060 of unsold securities carried forward. No usage is recorded yet, but the shelf provides flexibility to raise capital for working capital and growth.

Market Pulse Summary

This announcement integrates Emobot’s AI-driven “Depression Thermometer” across HOPE’s interventiona...

Analysis

This announcement integrates Emobot’s AI-driven “Depression Thermometer” across HOPE’s interventional psychiatry clinics, aiming to address a roughly 50% relapse rate within 6–12 months in Treatment-Resistant Depression. The platform’s validation (MADRS r=0.89, PHQ-9 r=0.83) complements NRXP’s broader push into neuroplastic therapies and clinic expansion. In context of recent FDA interactions and HOPE clinic growth, key watchpoints include further clinical data, adoption across sites, and how digital monitoring supports revenue growth and regulatory positioning.

Key Terms

treatment-resistant depression, actigraphy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, madrs, +4 more

8 terms

treatment-resistant depression medical

"prevent relapse in patients with Treatment-Resistant Depression (TRD)."

A form of major depression that does not improve after a person has tried standard treatments such as common antidepressant medications and therapy; think of it as a stubborn problem that doesn’t respond to the usual fixes. It matters to investors because it represents a large unmet medical need and a higher-risk, higher-reward area for drug developers, with potential for premium pricing, regulatory scrutiny, and durable demand if an effective new therapy is approved.

actigraphy medical

"analysis of facial expressions, vocal tones, and actigraphy."

Actigraphy is the use of a small, wrist‑worn device or sensor that records movement over days or weeks to estimate sleep, wake cycles and daily activity patterns—think of it as a continuous sleep and motion tracker like a fitness band used for clinical monitoring. It matters to investors because actigraphy provides objective, long‑term data for clinical trials, product claims and regulatory or reimbursement decisions, which can reduce uncertainty around a therapy’s or device’s effectiveness and market potential.

transcranial magnetic stimulation medical

"Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) have the potential to replace"

A noninvasive medical treatment that uses a changing magnetic field delivered through a coil placed near the head to stimulate specific areas of the brain, much like tapping a piano key to make a particular note play. Investors care because devices, clinical trial results, insurance coverage, and regulatory approvals determine commercial adoption and revenue potential for makers of the machines, clinics that offer the therapy, and related healthcare suppliers.

madrs medical

"strong concordance with MADRS (r=0.89) and PHQ-9 (r=0.83)"

MADRS (Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale) is a short, clinician‑completed questionnaire that assigns numbers to common symptoms of depression to produce a single score reflecting severity—think of it as a clinical “mood thermometer.” Investors watch MADRS results because drug trials often use changes in this score as the key measure of whether a treatment works; clear improvements or failures can strongly affect regulatory outcomes, market prospects and stock value.

phq-9 medical

"strong concordance with MADRS (r=0.89) and PHQ-9 (r=0.83)"

A nine-question survey used by clinicians and researchers to screen for depression and track its severity over time, with each item scored and summed to give a single, easy-to-interpret result. Investors pay attention to PHQ-9 scores because they often serve as clinical trial endpoints or real-world outcome measures — like a mood thermometer showing whether a treatment is working — and those results can influence regulatory decisions, label claims and commercial prospects.

post-hoc technical

"This post-hoc validation is detailed in a recent preprint"

An observation or analysis done after an event has already happened, often looking for patterns or explanations that were not planned in advance. For investors, post-hoc conclusions can highlight possible causes of a stock move or trial result, but they can also be misleading because they may fit a story to the outcome rather than predict it—like drawing a target around an arrow after it hits the wall.

affective computing technical

"utilizing affective computing to analyze facial expressions, vocal tones"

Affective computing is technology that detects and responds to human emotions by reading voice tone, facial expressions, body signals or physiological data and then adjusting a device’s behavior. For investors it matters because these systems can boost user engagement, personalize services, and open new product markets while also creating privacy, accuracy and regulatory risks that can affect revenue, adoption and valuation — like a thermostat that not only measures temperature but also senses comfort and adapts accordingly.

biomarkers medical

"continuous stream of objective biomarkers—effectively a ‘360-degree view’"

Biomarkers are measurable indicators found in the body, such as substances in blood or tissues, that reveal information about health or disease. For investors, they can signal how well a medical treatment is working or whether a disease is developing, helping to assess the potential success or risks of healthcare companies or innovations. Think of biomarkers as biological signals that provide clues about a person’s health status.

AI-generated analysis. Not financial advice.

• Hope Therapeutics (subsidiary of NRx Pharmaceuticals, Nasdaq: NRXP) partners with Emobot Health to deploy its AI-powered "Depression Thermometer" across its interventional psychiatry clinic network.
• Emobot's platform passively monitors depression, bipolar disorder and anxiety disorders via smartphone — replacing burdensome questionnaires with background analysis of facial expressions, vocal tones, and actigraphy.
• The partnership targets the critical "blind spot" in TRD care: ~50% of patients relapse within 6–12 months, often undetected between clinic visits.
• Clinical validation across three prospective studies shows strong concordance with MADRS (r=0.89) and PHQ-9 (r=0.83), providing an objective, real-time biomarker stream for clinicians.
• The integration is expected to double patient success rates by enabling timely "recapture" interventions — such as maintenance ketamine or TMS sessions — the moment early relapse signals are detected.
• Patients gain real-time mood, and activity insights through the Emobot app, with automatic notifications and in-app appointment scheduling if relapse risk is flagged.

SARASOTA, Fla. and PARIS, March 30, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hope Therapeutics, Inc. (“Hope”), a subsidiary of NRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: NRXP), today announced a strategic partnership with Emobot Health to deploy its revolutionary AI-driven emotional monitoring platform across Hope’s rapidly expanding network of interventional psychiatry clinics. This roll-out represents the first large-scale clinical integration of Emobot’s "Depression Thermometer," a passive monitoring tool designed to detect early treatment response and prevent relapse in patients with Treatment-Resistant Depression (TRD).

Emobot’s technology replaces cumbersome psychometric questionnaires with a background application on the user’s smartphone to passively and automatically measure levels of depression and potentially suicidality and PTSD.

In recent years, there has been widespread recognition that neuroplastic therapies, including potentially IV Ketamine, SPRAVATO® (esketamine), and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) have the potential to replace an older and less effective generation of oral antidepressants. While these modern interventions are enormously promising with reported response rates nearing 90% the industry faces a significant "blind spot": in that approximately 50% of patients relapse within 6 to 12 months. These relapses are often undetected between visits, leading to lost progress and a disconnect between the patient and their care team.

“Precision medicine requires real-time data to be effective,” said Jonathan Javitt, M.D., M.P.H., Founder and CEO of Hope Therapeutics. “In psychiatry, the period between clinic visits has traditionally been a ‘blind spot.’ Emobot’s 100% passive, multimodal AI provides us with a continuous stream of objective biomarkers—effectively a ‘360-degree view’ of a patient’s emotional state. We believe this is the new gold standard for care; in fact, we expect every patient to be on Emobot. Our team has 15+ years of experience in supporting digital health applications of this nature, having developed the first cellular-enabled medical device for monitoring of diabetes.”

The Emobot platform operates seamlessly in the background of a patient's digital life, utilizing affective computing to analyze facial expressions, vocal tones, and actigraphy. For clinics, this capability is expected to double patient success rates by enabling "recapture" interventions—such as maintenance or booster sessions—the moment a potential relapse is detected. Preliminary evidence from a pooled analysis of three prospective studies (EMC1, EMC2-FR and EMC2-BD) demonstrates strong convergent validity. This post-hoc validation is detailed in a recent preprint (Perzo, A., Petelot, T., Seguier, R., & Magaraggia, I., 2026), Clinical validation of the EMOCARE-derived depressive symptom severity score using established clinician- and self-reported scales: Preliminary evidence across 3 prospective studies, https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.03.08.26347894. In this analysis, the technology showed a strong within-person concordance (r=0.89,p< .05) with the MADRS scale and high sensitivity to change (r=0.83, p<.001) relative to PHQ-9 scores. These findings serve as a clinical foundation while the medical community awaits the conclusion of ongoing trials to publish final top-line results.

Beyond clinical oversight, the partnership prioritizes patient empowerment through mood self-monitoring. The Emobot app provides patients with real-time insights into their own mood trends, sleep, and physical activity. This transparency allows patients to become active participants in their recovery, using objective data to understand their triggers and progress.

If a relapse is detected, the app can trigger automatic notifications directly to the patient, allowing them to instantly reschedule a consultation in-app to get back on track before a crisis occurs.

“We are thrilled to join forces with Hope Therapeutics and to launch Emobot in HOPE’s Florida clinics,” said Tanel Petelot, CEO of Emobot. “Hope’s commitment to rapid-acting neuroplastic therapies perfectly aligns with our mission to provide the objective data needed to optimize those very treatments. Together, we are eliminating the guesswork from mental health care.”

About Emobot Health

Emobot (www.emobothealth.com) is a MedTech pioneer based at the Paris Brain Institute (ICM) that has developed the world’s first passive, multimodal AI platform for automated depression assessment and relapse detection. Unlike traditional active monitoring that requires patient interaction, Emobot’s "Depression Thermometer" runs 100% seamlessly in the background, providing clinicians with real-time insights into mood, sleep, and physical activity. Emobot is a trusted partner for leading academic institutions, including UC San Diego, Yale University, Johns Hopkins.

Media Contact: Tanel Petelot, CEO, press@emobot.fr

About Hope Therapeutics, Inc.

Hope Therapeutics (www.hopetherapeutics.com),Inc., a subsidiary of NRx Pharmaceuticals, is a healthcare delivery company building a nationwide network of interventional psychiatry clinics. Hope specializes in treating the toughest mental health conditions—including suicidal depression, PTSD, and TRD—using neuroplastic therapies such as IV Ketamine, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. With a goal to offer integrated care within driving distance of every American by the end of 2026.

About NRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
NRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (www.nrxpharma.com), is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing therapeutics based on its NMDA platform for the treatment of central nervous system disorders, specifically suicidal depression, chronic pain, and PTSD. The Company is developing NRX-100 (preservative-free intravenous ketamine) and NRX-101, (oral D-cycloserine/lurasidone). NRX-100 has been awarded Fast Track Designation for the treatment of Suicidal ideation in Depression, including Bipolar Depression. NRX-101 has been awarded Breakthrough Therapy Designation for the treatment of suicidal bipolar depression. NRx has filed an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA), and initiated a New Drug Application filing for NRX-100 with an application for the Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher Program for the treatment of suicidal ideation in patients with depression, including bipolar depression.

Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
The information contained herein includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Forward-looking statements generally include statements that are predictive in nature and depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, and include words such as "may," "will," "should," "would," "expect," "plan," "believe," "intend," "look forward," and other similar expressions among others. These statements relate to future events or to the Company's future financial performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. The Company has reported regulatory milestones as they have been achieved but has not predicted the outcome of any future regulatory determination. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements since they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond the Company's control and which could, and likely will, materially affect actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Any forward-looking statement reflects the Company's current views with respect to future events and is subject to these and other risks, including uncertainties and assumptions relating to the Company's operations, results of operations, growth strategy, and, among other things, liquidity. More detailed information about the Company and the risk factors that may affect the realization of forward-looking statements is set forth in the Company's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Investors and security holders are urged to read these documents free of charge on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov. Except as may be required by applicable law, the Company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For further information:
Brian Korb
Managing Partner, astr partners
(917) 653-5122
brian.korb@astrpartners.com

FAQ

What does Hope Therapeutics (NRXP) announce about Emobot integration on March 30, 2026?

Hope Therapeutics announced a strategic partnership to deploy Emobot’s passive AI "Depression Thermometer" across its clinic network. According to Hope Therapeutics, the rollout aims to provide continuous mood monitoring and trigger timely clinical interventions for TRD patients.

How accurate is Emobot’s Depression Thermometer compared with MADRS and PHQ-9 for NRXP patients?

Pooled validation showed strong concordance: MADRS r=0.89 and PHQ-9 r=0.83. According to Hope Therapeutics, these results come from three prospective studies reported in a 2026 preprint.

How could the Emobot integration affect patient outcomes at Hope Therapeutics (NRXP)?

The company expects the tool to enable rapid "recapture" interventions, potentially doubling patient success rates. According to Hope Therapeutics, timely alerts and in-app scheduling will help clinicians address relapse signals earlier.

What clinical evidence supports Emobot’s use in Hope Therapeutics (NRXP) clinics?

Support comes from a pooled post-hoc analysis of three prospective studies with high correlations to established scales. According to Hope Therapeutics, the analysis is detailed in a 2026 preprint while definitive trial results remain pending.

What problem is Hope Therapeutics (NRXP) trying to solve with Emobot in TRD care?

Hope is addressing the care "blind spot" where ~50% of TRD patients relapse within 6–12 months between visits. According to Hope Therapeutics, passive monitoring aims to detect early relapse signals and reduce lost progress.