David Benshoof Klein

Founder & CEO Click Therapeutics, Inc.

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

David Benshoof Klein founded Click Therapeutics in 2012 on a premise that sounded eccentric at the time and is now a regulated product category: that software delivered through a smartphone can function as a prescription medicine, and should be held to the same evidentiary standard. He coined the term Digital Therapeutics for it. The distinction that matters, and the one Klein has argued most persistently, is between wellness apps and treatments - Click runs randomised controlled trials and takes its products through FDA review rather than shipping to an app store. The approach has produced two American firsts. Rejoyn, developed with Otsuka, is the first prescription digital therapeutic authorised by the FDA for the adjunctive treatment of major depressive disorder symptoms. CT-132, authorised in April 2025 through the De Novo pathway, is the first for the preventive treatment of episodic migraine. Klein came to this from the financing side of life sciences, having helped create and fund more than ten science companies as a managing director at Opus Point Partners.

Career Highlights

• Founded Click Therapeutics in New York in 2012 and has led it as CEO throughout, building a company that engineers, validates and commercialises software-based prescription treatments across psychiatry, neurology and oncology.
• Coined the term Digital Therapeutics to name the modality, and has been a consistent public advocate for rigorous development and high-quality evidence standards in the category rather than looser wellness-app norms.
• Developed Rejoyn in collaboration with Otsuka, the first FDA-authorised prescription digital therapeutic for the adjunctive treatment of major depressive disorder symptoms.
• Secured FDA marketing authorisation for CT-132 in April 2025 by the De Novo pathway for first-in-class devices, the first prescription digital therapeutic indicated for preventing episodic migraine in adults, supported by the ReMMi-D pivotal trial, which met its primary endpoint of reducing monthly migraine days on top of background pharmacotherapy, and the ReMMiD-C bridging study in patients taking CGRP inhibitors.
• Closed a Series C in March 2025 funded entirely by Dassault Systemes, the French software company; an April 2025 securities filing put the amount at more than $48.5M.
• Launched Click SE, or Software-Enhanced Drugs, extending the model from standalone software treatments to software paired with a pharmaceutical product.
• Served as a managing director at Opus Point Partners, where he helped create and finance more than ten life-science companies, including businesses subsequently acquired by Johnson & Johnson and Lundbeck.
• Recognised as one of Goldman Sachs’ 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs in 2019 and named to the PharmaVoice 100 in October 2024.

Professional Journey

Klein spent the first part of his career on the capital side of the life-science industry, most consequentially as a managing director at Opus Point Partners, where the work was creating and financing companies rather than running one. More than ten science businesses came out of that period, some of which were later bought by Johnson & Johnson and Lundbeck. It gave him an unusual starting position for a founder in digital health: fluency in how drugs get financed, developed and approved, rather than in consumer software.

The idea for Click arrived in 2012, when he concluded that the smartphone had become powerful enough to change behaviour and cognition directly, and that this could be aimed deliberately at clinical outcomes. The gap he saw was one of access as much as efficacy - there are far more people with treatable brain disorders than there are clinicians to treat them, and software scales in a way that therapy hours do not. He founded Click Therapeutics to build app-based treatments and named the category Digital Therapeutics.

The defining strategic choice was to accept pharmaceutical-grade regulation rather than avoid it. That meant running randomised controlled trials, building an evidence base, and submitting to the FDA, all of which is slower and more expensive than the consumer route, and it is the reason Click’s products are prescribed rather than downloaded. It also made pharmaceutical partners possible. The collaboration with Otsuka produced Rejoyn, which became the first prescription digital therapeutic authorised by the FDA for the adjunctive treatment of major depressive disorder symptoms, validating both the modality and the partnership model.

The company’s second first came from its own pipeline. CT-132, a treatment for the prevention of episodic migraine, was reviewed through the De Novo pathway that the FDA reserves for first-in-class devices and received marketing authorisation in April 2025. The submission rested on the ReMMi-D pivotal randomised controlled trial, in which the product significantly reduced monthly migraine days on top of patients’ existing medication, and on ReMMiD-C, a bridging study showing comparable performance in patients already taking CGRP inhibitors. That evidence structure, adding a software treatment on top of pharmacotherapy rather than replacing it, is the same logic behind Click SE, the company’s Software-Enhanced Drugs programme.

Financing followed the regulatory progress. In March 2025 Click announced a Series C funded entirely by Dassault Systemes, the French software company with a large life-sciences business; the amount was undisclosed at announcement, and a securities filing the following month indicated more than $48.5M. Klein has kept a foot in the academic and public conversation throughout, appearing as guest faculty at Columbia University, Columbia Business School and NYU’s Stern School of Business, and arguing publicly that collaboration between technology and pharmaceutical companies is what will actually move the standard of care.

Education

Brandeis University

Bachelor’s degree

No field of study or graduation year is stated in any source consulted.