Digital health & genomics · Migraine care
Mable
A DNA guided migraine clinic that paired a cheek swab with telehealth prescribing. It raised a seed round in 2022 and, per public filings, wound down by August 2023.
A fiancee, a father, a swab
Roman Rothaermel finished a PhD in neuroscience at the University of Oxford in the late 2010s, studying memory encoding and the brain wide synchronization that lets people retrieve complex memories. He came out of that program with an idea for a company, not a postdoc. His father had spent a career as a neurologist. His fiancee had spent years cycling through migraine medications that did not work.
“She was given one medication after another, passed from doctor to doctor and prescribed medications she had to try for months,” Rothaermel told Axios in 2022. “It can take years to find a medication that works.”
That was the problem Mable set out to solve: not a new migraine drug, but a way to pick the right one on the first try, using DNA collected from an at home cheek swab.
A guessing game with 25 options
Migraine is common and expensive. Nearly 40 million Americans have migraine headaches, according to figures Mable's lead investor cited in 2022, and the condition costs US employers at least $13 billion a year in lost productivity. Worldwide, more than a billion people are affected. Yet the National Institutes of Health spent about $40 million on migraine research in 2021, versus $218 million on epilepsy, despite migraine ranking as the third most prevalent and sixth most disabling illness in the world.
There are more than 25 drugs regularly prescribed for migraine, and neurologists have historically had no reliable way to predict which one will work for a given patient. Mable's pitch was that a person's DNA, specifically the genes that govern how the body metabolizes drugs, could narrow that guesswork. “Even renowned headache experts admit, time and time again, that they just guess when they prescribe a new medication to a patient, and the number one thing missing in migrant care is a good biomarker system,” Rothaermel said in a 2022 interview. “That is precisely why we want to bring genetics into migrant care.”
The team and the pitch
Rothaermel co-founded the company with Inna Nicole Thalmann, who completed a PhD in econometrics with a focus on health economics at Oxford, followed by postdoctoral work on phenotype algorithms for clinical trials. By the time the company ran a public Reddit AMA in May 2022, its team also included Chris Eijsbouts as Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Kumeren Govender as Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Tom Kent as Chief Technology Officer, and Tom Lovejoy, a physician, on the clinical side.
“We are moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach into individualized medicine.” Rothaermel said the company was also focused on accessibility and convenience, noting that telehealth had made it possible to reach patients in remote areas.
The steps were simple on the patient's end: an online consultation, a mailed cheek swab kit, a genetic report, and a treatment plan built around it, with ongoing prescriptions and follow up from a telehealth physician. “We close the loop between genetic testing and making that information actionable,” Rothaermel told Axios.
From incorporation to strike off
The UK operating entity, Neurolytic Healthcare Ltd, was incorporated on April 15, 2019, with Rothaermel as its sole director, according to Companies House. A Delaware entity, Neurolytic Healthcare, Inc., was formed in 2021 to raise US money; its first outside investment closed on December 14, 2021, and by the time it filed a Form D with the SEC on December 29, 2021, it had sold $3,081,917 in equity to 11 investors. One of the four people the filing lists as related persons is Parul Singh, a director and, per Initialized Capital's own account, the partner who led the firm's investment.
The company went public with that funding in July 2022, when Axios reported a $3.2 million seed round led by Initialized Capital, with First In Ventures, Arkitekt Ventures, and angel investor Inaki Berenguer also participating. That is close to, though not identical to, the $3,081,917 the Form D shows as sold roughly seven months earlier. Around the same time, Mable said it was live in 10 US states with a waitlist of 5,000 people and planned to reach 42 states by the end of August 2022.
A secured charge was registered against Neurolytic Healthcare Ltd on February 1, 2022. It was marked satisfied on May 5, 2023. Five days later, the company filed to strike itself off the UK register, and the strike off became final on August 8, 2023. PitchBook separately lists the company's status as Out of Business as of that same date. No SEC amendment, press release, or news report names an acquirer or describes a sale. As of a September 2026 check, the trymable.com domain no longer belongs to the company; it now hosts unrelated marketing content from a UK hair transplant clinic, My Hair UK.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| FDA clearance | No FDA 510(k) or PMA record found under Mable or Neurolytic Healthcare. | Not found |
| Lab regulatory status | The company described its DNA test as “an approved Laboratory Developed Test regulated under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments programme regulated by federal regulatory standards,” in a 2022 public Q&A. LDTs of that era did not require FDA premarket clearance. | Company-stated |
| Clinical trial for the product | No registered trial found. Asked directly in a 2022 Reddit AMA why it was “selling and advertising a product with no published clinical trial addressing migraines,” the company's Chief Scientific Officer replied that a trial was “on our radar, but takes time,” and pointed instead to pharmacogenetic studies in depression and to migraine genetic-predisposition research, not a study of Mable's own algorithm. | Differs from claim of efficacy |
| Internal outcomes data | The company said it had collected data on 700 migraine patients showing that people on its recommended treatments reported greater efficacy and satisfaction, and called this “research we hope to expand on and publish.” No publication was found. | Company-stated, unpublished |
| Peer-reviewed literature | No PubMed results for Mable or Neurolytic Healthcare found as of this research. | Not found |
| UK care regulation | No CQC-registered service found under Mable or Neurolytic Healthcare. Prescribing appears to have run through contracted US telehealth physicians rather than an English regulated clinic. | Not found |
Read plainly: Mable built a genetics-guided prescribing workflow and put it in front of paying patients before any dedicated clinical trial of that workflow existed. The company was upfront about this when pressed in public, pointing to adjacent research rather than data on its own product. Whether that approach worked for the patients who used it is not something any public record answers.
What to watch
- Whether any public record ever names an acquirer for Mable or Neurolytic Healthcare. None had surfaced as of this research, despite the company's status sometimes being described as acquired.
- Any amended SEC filing clarifying the final size of the 2021 to 2022 raise.
- Roman Rothaermel's subsequent roles, which public profiles place in venture capital, for any account of what became of Mable.
- Whether the Mable brand, app, or patient data resurface under new ownership; the original domain now belongs to an unrelated business.
In their words
“She was given one medication after another, passed from doctor to doctor and prescribed medications she had to try for months.”
Roman Rothaermel, co-founder and CEO, Axios, Jul 2022 · Independent
“It can take years to find a medication that works.”
Roman Rothaermel, Axios, Jul 2022 · Independent
“We close the loop between genetic testing and making that information actionable.”
Roman Rothaermel, Axios, Jul 2022 · Independent
“We are moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach into individualized medicine.”
Roman Rothaermel, Initialized Capital blog interview, Jul 2022 · Interview
“Even renowned headache experts admit, time and time again, that they just guess when they prescribe a new medication to a patient, and the number one thing missing in migrant care is a good biomarker system.”
Roman Rothaermel, Initialized Capital blog interview, Jul 2022 · Interview
“This test is an approved Laboratory Developed Test regulated under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments programme regulated by federal regulatory standards.”
Dr. Kumeren Govender, Chief Medical Officer, and Chris Eijsbouts, Chief Scientific Officer, Reddit AMA, May 2022 · Company statement
“Conducting a clinical trial is certainly on our radar, but takes time, and we believe sufficient evidence exists to make a difference for migraine patients now.”
Chris Eijsbouts, Chief Scientific Officer, Reddit AMA, May 2022 · Company statement
“You are selling and advertising a product with no published clinical trial addressing migraines.”
u/haplo_and_dogs, Reddit commenter, to Mable's team, May 2022 · Public criticism
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordForm D, Neurolytic Healthcare, Inc., CIK 0001901484
- Public recordNEUROLYTIC HEALTHCARE LTD company overview, company number 11946343
- Public recordNEUROLYTIC HEALTHCARE LTD filing history
- Public recordNEUROLYTIC HEALTHCARE LTD officers
- IndependentMable raises $3M for DNA-based migraine treatment
- IndependentEarly Money: Here's how this San Francisco startup aims to help migraine sufferers
- InterviewMigraines cost U.S. employers $13B a Year. Here's How Mable Health is Helping to Personalize Migraine Treatments
- IndependentNeurolytic Healthcare company profile, status Out of Business
- IndependentNeurolytic Healthcare company and funding profile
- CompanyWe're Mable, the first company to individualize migraine care by using DNA (Reddit AMA)
- CompanyMable: First personalized migraine clinic using genetics and telehealth
- CompanyMable | Neurolytic Healthcare company page
- IndependentMable (Neurolytic Healthcare) company profile
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
