August 25, 2026- Chronic pain, or persistent pain lasting more than three months, affects nearly 1 in 4 Americans, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Supporting patients with chronic pain in the U.S. largely falls on primary care physicians – they are often the first solution to helping patients navigate pain and find relief.
With the significant volume of patients facing chronic pain, however, primary care physicians don’t always have the time or resources to fully care for patients’ ongoing treatment needs.
To address this, a new company formed in 2025 – known as Glimmer Health – supports primary care providers in managing the complexities of chronic pain and providing effective, comprehensive chronic pain management for patients.
“Chronic pain is the ongoing existence of pain for three or more months, and it differentiates from post-surgical pain in which someone has trauma or an accident, which is more episodic,” said Alissa Meade, Co-Founder and CEO of Glimmer Health, who has spent the last 10+ years leading early-stage venture-backed healthcare companies. Prior to that she was a consultant at McKinsey and a Vice President in healthcare investment banking. “At this moment, somewhere between 20% to 25% of adult Americans are suffering from chronic pain – indicating that it is an enormous, intractable, ubiquitous problem.” Indeed, nearly 70 million U.S. adults experience clinically significant chronic pain requiring them to seek treatment, often turning to their primary care physician first.
Continue Reading in the latest issue of Repertoire Magazine.