#169 - Too late, Major Tom 👩🚀
#169 - Too late, Major Tom 👩🚀
The one-minute healthtech roundup
Hi friends,
This week: Experts weigh in on virtual wards, demonstrating virtual care’s role in underserved communities, and tech that gives a man his mobility back.
News Bites 🥪
🚶🏻♂️Parkinson's implant restores man's ability to walk – Were this week’s story line-up not so strong, this would be the point where Pigeon told everyone to go home – because ain’t nothing going to beat giving a man the use of his legs back.
🛰️ HTC is Sending a VR Headset to the ISS to Support Astronaut Mental Health – Ok, well played HTC. That mobile phone Pigeon had back in 2009 didn’t give us ‘virtual reality astronaut mental health’ vibes, but you’ve knocked it out of the park here. 9/10. Points deducted only because the target audience seems quite niche.
🐦⬛ Blackbird invests in Carepatron’s ‘radically accessible’ healthcare management platform – Sorry to break it to everyone who has a favourite spreadsheet app, or is still using Zoom for their video calls, but it’s a generalist’s world out there. Carepatron’s betting on bringing everything clinicians need to manage their practice into one place. With a fresh $4m raise, it seems like its backers are too.
🧘♀️ HealthTech's Role In Self-Care In The Era Of Google And AI – Who amongst us can honestly say we haven’t googled a symptom we’re experiencing that day and diagnosed ourselves with wing rot? (FYI we’d just spilled some ink.) If we’re not careful, that tendency could get worse with the rise of the chatbot. Some mixed words of caution and optimism follow in this post.
🏥 The RCP view: Hospital at Home and virtual wards – It’s possible that a lot of us are talking at cross purposes when we discuss virtual wards, so it’s nice when experts enter the conversation (and Pigeon takes a day off). The RCP set out their view which, while wordy, is ultimately…they’re a pretty good idea.
🏡 Feebris study demonstrates impact of AI-guided virtual care – Positive results all round in a new study on how AI-guided virtual care can increase clinical capacity. The model, tested in communities outside of Mumbai, has great potential to improve care in underserved communities.
🥚 Health AI startup Cercle debuts with backing from Sheryl Sandberg – Honestly, Pigeon was just happy this AI story wasn’t about a chatbot or an ambient listening app. Reading further though, this could be a groundbreaking use of AI in fertility treatment, backed by a high profile investor.
🥖 Diabetes: England To Roll Out ‘Life-Changing’ Artificial Pancreas Tech – A massive milestone for treatment of type 1 diabetes in the UK is hit as hybrid closed loop systems hit the NHS.
X marks the spot…❌
🗺️ Albion VC publishes the European HealthTech Market Map 2023 - It’s 100% possible to work in healthtech for years without ever having heard of some of these verticals, let alone the companies within them. Albion have swept across Europe to bring us the complete picture of who’s doing what, where they’re doing it, and where their interests lie.
FAST (award) times at healthtech high…
The NIHR are offering grants to primary care AI startups and researchers to complete short projects — and The Hardian Health team are on standby ready to support companies with their applications. Head over to the Hardian Health website for more information and to apply.
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 - Too late, Major Tom - Join James, Jessica, Huw and Motics’ Harvinder Power as they take a deep dive into the week’s healthtech news and views…and an even deeper dive into an existential rabbit-hole.
🔊 The Healthtech Podcast #328 Does 8M followers make you a healthtech entrepreneur? Is an influencer a new, tech-enabled public health doctor? With Dr Karan Rajan - James is joined by Dr Karan Rajan, an NHS surgeon, clinical lecturer and a social media educator, dispelling popular medical myths and working to make health, science and medicine engaging, entertaining, and accessible to a wide audience.
Events 📅
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 🕵️♀️
Fellowship in Clinical AI, Guys and St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust - Want to get the lowdown on how to implement and deploy clinical AI through a year long fellowship that you participate in alongside your clinical work? This is the programme for you.
Contract Manager, Mindler - Mindler is a digital mental health therapy solution looking for someone to help scale their offering to partners across the NHS and beyond. If that sounds like a mission you can get behind, then apply now.
Systems Engineer - Clinical Operations, Elekta - In this role, you’ll work closely with customers across healthcare to ensure effective, seamless deployments of Elekta’s radiology solutions. If you’re a technical and systems wizard used to working with complex medical systems, hit the apply button.
Senior Frontend Engineer, Gaia - Work on engineering projects at a insurance business with a mission to ensure anyone who wants to have a family through IVF can.
Operations Manager, Pocdoc - Diagnostic firebrands PocDoc are scaling, and they need someone to manage their operations as they level-up their manufacturing and take their NHS partnerships to the next level.
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.