#168 - A (Virtual) Apple a Day….🍏
#168 - A (Virtual) Apple a Day….🍏
The one-minute healthtech roundup
Hi friends,
This week: Tech that puts you to sleep, tech that keeps you moving, and is there a mental health service in the world that could justify procuring the Apple Vision Pro?
News Bites 🥪
📚 Generative AI can be applied to nearly every healthcare use case you can think of – Yeah, Gen AI is interesting, but what’s it actually useful for? The answer, it turns out, is everything.
👞 Vibrating shoe insoles are just part of a new wave of health sensors that are shaking things up – We’re spoiling first-time readers with a round up of some genuinely snazzy new health technologies. From bandages that monitor the progress of your wound healing to, as the title points out, vibrating insoles. Sounds mad, might actually be mad.
🍏 Apple could use the Vision Pro to treat mental illness – This newsletter has had some great VR and AR use cases for treating complex conditions over the last few weeks. From Parkinsons to Alzheimers and beyond. Now an AR treatment for mental health could be on the cards from Apple. Then again, some might argue that spending $3499 on the first-generation Vision Pro could also be a strong indicator that something’s not quite right with you.
📝 This Startup Raised $30 Million To Take On Microsoft's AI Notetaker For Doctors – Longtime readers will be familiar with Nuance, the Microsoft backed gen AI assistant for clinicians. They may be less familiar with Abridge, a smaller competitor with some big backers. The interesting part? EPR mega-provider Epic also seems to be hedging its bets by integrating both little and large players into the system.
😶 A group behind Stable Diffusion wants to open source emotion-detecting AI – Is it healthtech? It certainly could be. Volunteers are coding youtube clips of people on an emotional scale (On the scale provided, Pigeon would be coded as: British, Aroused, Unpleasant…) which will be used to train an AI to detect emotions. Many have tried, most have failed, and the whole thing could be scientifically problematic and riddled with bias….
💰 New £100 million fund to capitalise on AI’s game-changing potential in life sciences and healthcare – The latest government health funding announcement comes with a reference to Dame Barbara Windsor AND a massive caveat that it’s all subject to an approved business case. Well it wouldn’t be an international summit without splashing some cash on AI’s game-changing potential, would it?
😴 FDA clearance for Neurovalens’ Modius device – Struggling to sleep? Then shoot electrical pulses into your brain while you watch TV*. This mad-sounding but ultimately impressive technology could make a huge difference for everyone who suffers from insomnia.
The urgent call for innovation and investment in maternal health – a passionate call for more investment and a great understanding in maternal health, that kicks off with a Leonardo Da Vinci anecdote, runs into an indictment of health inequalities in maternity, and brings it all home with a challenge for all of us to get behind better outcomes.
We’re selecting 4 companies for FREE SomX support 💌
We talk a lot about values - a big part of that is collaborating with purpose-led people and organisations to make positive change. We work across the whole ecosystem with companies of all sizes and areas of focus, but there are some areas we’re really excited about right now.
So, from January we’re offering two free months of strategy and communications support for one company across each of the following categories:
🚺 Women’s health
🍄 Psychedelics
🤗 Mental health
🧬 Rare diseases
Whether your solution is in biotech, medtech, digital health or wellness, we want to hear from you! Interested? Register your interest here. [terms and conditions apply]
What to listen to 🔊
🐦 Healthtech Pigeon - GOSH, isn't it hard to adopt Generative AI In healthcare? – Join James, Huw and TORTUS’s Dom Pimenta as they take a deep-dive into the week’s healthtech news and views.
🔊 The Healthtech Podcast #327 Diagnostics, Data and a Department of Health Contract, with Hamish Grierson - James is joined by Hamish Grierson, CEO of the personal diagnostics and health platform, Thriva, which he set up in 2016 with co-founders, Eliot Brooks and Tom Livesey. Thriva's core mission is to put better health in people’s hands with affordable, clinical-grade testing based on the latest research.
Events 📅
Global Genomics Conference 2023
🕣 9 November
📍 One Great George Street, London
Transforming Healthcare with AI - Reality versus the hype
🕣 23 November
📍 Wrights Lane, London
Parliament & HealthTech Conference 2023
🕣 28 November
📍 Houses of Parliament, London
Digital Health World Congress 2023
🕣 29 November, 2023
📍 Kensington Conference and Event Centre, London
Opportunities 🕵️♀️
Product Designer, Flo - Those amazing geniuses at Flo (did you see Flo for partners launch last week?) are hiring again, and this time for a product designer. Better get in quick if you fit the bill!
Digital Health Learning Technologist, King’s College London - Working with stakeholders from healthcare, industry and academia to pull together a curriculum of content to educate on everything from basic data science to implementing new medtech? Sound great! Have you applied yet?
UK Clinical Lead (Weight Loss), HeliosX - Oversee and build the HeliosX’s prescription weight-loss service in the. UK. Interested in the field? Get involved.
Customer Success & Implementations Manager, Joy - To be honest, Pigeon has always strived to be an implementation manager for Joy…..Oh, they’re a company — this is probably a role for someone with experience. If that’s you, go for it!
Growth Specialist, Healthtech 1 - Passionate about primary care and want to make sure its sustainable. Healthtech 1 are looking for a growth lead who understands the pressures GP surgeries are under. If this is yo, apply today!
*Take that fork out the plug socket…you know that’s not what we meant.
Got news, jobs or events you think is worth coo-ing over? Let us know! Email us: news@healthtechpigeon.com
SomX is a communications and creative agency elevating healthcare. We are clinicians, scientists, creatives and communicators dedicated to serving our healthtech, biotech, pharma and public sector clients with services across strategy, content, PR, design, events and media production. Get in touch to learn more.