After suffering life-threatening nerve damage from a car accident in 1992, Richard Hanbury WG01 devised technology to ease his pain and sleeplessness, then refined the device over the next 25 years. Sana, which looks like a sleek VR headset or ultra-padded eye mask, casts patterns of light and sound that deeply relax the brain. Because everyone’s biometrics—pulse and breathing rate, for example—are different, Sana quickly learns the unique algorithms a user needs to fall and stay asleep.
The device is so effective at relieving chronic-pain-related and PTSD-induced insomnia that Sana Health is in clinical trials with Mount Sinai Hospital, Stanford Sleep Labs, and the U.K. military, aiming to obtain FDA certification this year.
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