#178 - Heart failure? Big deal(s) 💰
The one-minute healthtech roundup
Hi friends,
This week: Surgery takes a leap into the future, AI can identify psychedelic drugs (sometimes), and General Catalyst demonstrate follow-through.
News Bites 🥪
🕶️ HoloCare to launch at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust – Ok health innovators, we’re setting the bar impossibly high with story #1: your surgeon will soon be mulling over exactly how they’re going to do your liver resection while looking at your organs in glossy virtual reality. It’s shiny stuff like this that made us get into healthtech in the first place.
🧑🍳 DiMe project will develop recipe for digital health success – Are digital health companies sinking too much cash into clinical trials and studies that satisfy regulators but leave the people actually paying for the products cold? DiMe say yes – pointing to some pear-shaped holes in the DTx market. Now they’re leading a consortium to tackle the problem.
🍄 AlphaFold found thousands of possible psychedelics. Will its predictions help drug discovery? – Assuming it works, AI has the potential to cut drug discovery times in half, and the cost of developing a drug could fall dramatically as a result. But there remain a number of doubts as to how effective it may be, and in what circumstances. A new study draws some interesting conclusions about the use of Deepmind’s Alphafold in identifying psychedelic drug candidates.
New UK rules will drastically lower the number of women able to angel invest in startups – Could regulatory changes implemented at the end of this month shut down the flow of capital into female-owned businesses? Very possibly, say investors. A new petition aims to change the rules before it’s too late.
🔥 Digital health startups are running out of cash — firesales are expected – That IPO you’ve been waiting for may no longer be happening, and the VCs have been scared off by high profile failures. Will 2024 be the year of M&A, and at what cost?
📲 CardioSignal secures $10M Series A for industry-first smartphone tech for heart disease detection – your phone could soon detect a range of heart conditions just be placing it on your chest. Cardiosignal has already received regulatory approval for biomarkers around Atrial fibrilation and heart failure, with more to come – and the company’s grabbed a cash injection to support further trials of other conditions.
💗 Acorai raises $4.5m to advance heart monitoring device trial – Not far behind, and following their breakthrough device designation back in August, Acorai have picked up another funding dose to support their plans for market access in 2025.
📜 WHO releases AI ethics and governance guidance for large multi-modal models – Admit it, you’ve only just got your head around LLMs (Large Language Models) since they seemingly popped up out of nowhere at the end of 2022. Now we’re all about large multi-modal models (...they might be the same thing…sssh!). Still, the WHO has some guidance on their governance.
⚕️ General Catalyst to acquire nonprofit system Summa Health – No healthtech companies that have raised in the last year could possibly accuse VCs of moving too fast. And yet, just 4 months after saying that they would buy a health system, General Catalyst have hit the ‘buy now’ button on a system in Ohio, promising a long-term play to encourage innovation in healthcare.
😲 GOSH leading on project to transform health data across Europe – Is a new project designed to drive innovation and make it easier for clinicians and researchers to use child health data a model for other systems to follow?
What to listen to 🔊
🐦 The Healthtech Pigeon Podcast — Join Jessica and Huw as they take a deep-dive into the week’s healthtech news and views.
🔊 The Capital of Health - Michelle Griffin: Womens health is not niche — Eminent womens health expert Dr Michelle Griffin speaks joins the UCL GBSH podcast to articulate the pressing need for a solution-focused approach to health innovation, emphasising the importance of replicable results.
A special event needs special guests…
After 300+ episodes, the Healthtech Podcast comes to BFI Southbank on 29th February for its first ever public live recording, and we’ve got some super special guests …
We’ll be joined by Dr Helen O'Neill, CEO and Founder of Hertility and Dr Karan Rajan, myth-busting social media star and Number 1 Sunday Times Bestseller.
Book your ticket now and don’t miss the conversation. Use code ‘COOCOO40’ for a special pigeon discount.
Events 📅
Mastering the Art of Bid Writing in Healthcare: Expert Tips & Tricks
🕣 6 February
📍 Online
Womens Health Tech Wednesday | Paulina Cecula, Dama Health
🕣 14 February
📍 Online
London Biotechnology Show
🕣 20 February
📍 Olympia West, London
Bringing Software as a Medical Device to Market - HDR UK x Hardian Health
🕣 21 & 22 February
📍 Wellcome Trust, Euston Road, London
HETT North
🕣 28 February
📍 Manchester
HealthTechX Summit 2024
🕣 28 February - Use HTX24SMITH for 30% off your ticket
📍 The Hurlingham Club, London
Digital Health Rewired
🕣 12-13 March
📍 The NEC, Birmingham
Opportunities 🕵️♀️
🏦 Vice President - HealthTech Relationship Management, Early Stage Practice, HSBC Innovation Bank – consider this one on the list of jobs Pigeon would absolutely excel at if he wasn’t a) a Pigeon and b) deeply under-qualified. For healthtech experts who fit neither of those criteria, this is a must apply.
⏲️ Backend Developer, Chronomics – If you think your coding skills could help people live longer, happier lives then a) ooh, get you! And b) Chronomics is looking for a backend engineer to do just that. Go for it.
💖 Head of Product, Idoven – theis week’s Cardio care theme continues into the jobs section, so if you’re a product leader who was suitably engaged further up the page, definitely take a look at this one.
🥼 Operations Lead, BfB Labs – Want to be part of building a DTx product that’s helping youn people manage their mental health. BfB Labs could be your next role.
Got news, jobs or events you think is worth coo-ing over? Let us know! Email us: news@healthtechpigeon.com
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