#107: You are not a gorilla 🦍

The one-minute healthtech roundup. Maybe take 2 minutes over it this week, given it's a Bank Holiday. Maybe don't. No skin off my beak.

Hi friends,

This week: Organ harvesting, animal testing, death to gorillas, and other uplifting stories.

News Bites 🥪

🥽 VR and mental health: The future? - Depression treatment is changing. With over 1.6m awaiting treatment in the UK, could VR be the answer?

🧫 How human ‘organs on a chip’ can help replace animal testing - Animal testing isn’t just ethically questionable—it’s actually not that effective. Several biotech firms are developing technology that could change that.

🫀 This startup wants to copy you into an embryo for organ harvesting - Moral minefield ahoy! In a search for novel forms of longevity medicine, a biotech company says it intends to create embryo-stage versions of people in order to harvest tissues for use in transplant treatments.

💸 Japanese medical AI startup Ubie snaps up $26M in Series C funding - It’s pronounced ‘you-be’ before you ask. That’s the first time Pigeon has used its 5 years of Japanese study for anything useful.

🚑 Uber moves into healthcare with Australian patient transport service - Pigeon’s recent Uber experience suggest this will do nothing for patient wait times.

🫀 Novartis Biome UK Heart Health Catalyst 2022 - Are you a startup in cardiovascular disease patient care pathways? If yes, click. If no, don’t click. If unsure, check your business model.

And finally…

🦍 Strive to be a Gorilla, not just a Unicorn - “A gorilla is a startup with $1B+ valuation AND $100M+ net revenue run rate”. No it’s not. A gorilla is a 250kg great ape that could rip your arms off and use them as hockey sticks if it wanted to*. Less zoological navel-gazing puff-piece-centric jargon, more investing from the investment community, please.

What to listen to 🔊

🧐 Ethical Data #008 - Data, standards, & commercialization, with Leslie Kanthan - Feebris’ Elina Naydenova and TurinTech AI’s Leslie Kanthan get stuck into all things ethical AI.

🦍 #107: You are not a gorilla

Opportunities 🕵️‍♀️

📔 Senior Health Economist, BMJ - Do you enjoy delivering timely and high-quality economic evaluations to meet customer requirements? Do you not enjoy this, but are capable of it and have bills to pay? If you’ve answered yes to either of those questions, you can apply. If you answered no, I’m sorry this won’t be for you.

👧 Partnerships Director, Peppy - This isn’t useful information, or pertinent to the role at all, but Pigeon finds it difficult to think about Peppy without thinking about Swedish children’s character Pippi Longstocking.

🌟 Partnerships Lead (Trusts), Accurx - Primary care favourites Accurx are extending their well-built tentacles into secondary care. Join them.

---

*Do gorillas play hockey? Answers on a postcard. Unless a gorilla’s had your arms off. Then you can call instead. 0181 811 81 81.