Hi friends,
This week: Stop lying to your therapist, building digital babies, and why are we investing so much in healthcare AI?
Tired eyes? š Listen to the Healthtech Pigeon podcast ā”ļø Jessica, James and Huw from SomX breakdown the best stories from this weekās newsletter. Available now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
News Bites š„Ŗ
š¦ AI system learns ālanguage of cancerā to enable improved diagnosis ā Another banger from the National Cancer Institute, as an AI learned to identify links between specifics in images of patient lungs, before going on to predict patients outcomes and cancer return rates with an accuracy of 72% ā higher than the human clinicians. Just donāt ask Duolingo for a refresher course in the language of cancer.Ā
š¤„ Lying To Your Therapist Is Being Superseded By Telling The Truth To Generative AI ā Startling assertions lie buried throughout this examination of why weāre more likely to tell ChatGPT the truth than we are a real therapist. If you turn to ChatGPT for therapy because youāre afraid a human would be too judgemental, Pigeonās got really bad news for youā¦
š§ UC San Diego develops first-in-kind protocol for creating āwired miniature brainsāĀ ā Sure, right now itās all about āhelping us to understand alzheimersā, but give it a year and itāll be āOh no, the mini-brains are sentient and theyāve locked us out of the labā¦ā. Pigeonās view? Why fight it: all hail the mini-brains.
š² Study highlights need for more rigorous evaluation of digital health apps ā Colour Pigeon shocked, as new report finds that how well reviewed a digital health app is on the app-store doesnāt always match up to how valuable or reliable it is as a healthcare solution. Letās face it, if a 5-star rating equated to a better health outcome, ChatGPT and TikTok could have solved all the worldās problems by lunchtime tomorrow.
š£ 'Digital babies' created to advance infant precision medicine ā Digital twins are all the rage in healthcare, and could help to transform our approach to disease management. But it turns out that weāre all a little bit too unique (metabolically) when we first start out life, so before we can make digital twins of babies, someone needed to actually make a digital babyā¦
š Urinary incontinence neuromod newcomer Amber Therapeutics nets $100M ā Helping women with incontinence to regulate urinary function via electrical stimulation of a hitherto untouched nerve? Amber are addressing an unmet need in a novel way ā so much so, theyāve bagged one of the largest raises for a UK medtech company in the process.Ā
š AI in Healthcare Report: Healthcare AI investment growing faster than non-health AI ā Is AIās promise in healthcare so much greater than in other sectors? Or do we just like to talk about it more? A new report outlines an interesting trend thatās probably worthy of a longer analysis.
š° Digital transformation: Health systems' investment priorities ā Maybe all those investors throwing money at healthcare AI are counting on the enthusiasm among hospital exec-buyers, many of whom put advanced analytical tools in their list of the top technologies likely to make an impact. That said, if investors are relying on these eager execs, they may be waiting a while for that ROI, if this McKinsey analysis is anything to go by.
š¢ Anterior grabs $20M from NEA to expedite health insurance approvals with AI ā Healthcare reimbursement can be a sore subject for healthcare providers, particularly when it requires a significant investment of time and energy to pull together viable claims. Anterior is leveraging AI to solve that problem, and has picked up a sizeable amount from the likes of former-Deepmind, now Microsoft AI guru Mustafa Suleyman, NEA and Sequoia.
šŖ First NHS physiotherapy clinic run by AI to start this year ā Rapid digitally-enabled progress, or AI-enhanced dystopia? Whatever your feelings about an AI physiotherapist, the future is here. While this article rightly points out that AI is not able to replace a qualified physiotherapist, is it inevitable that weāll see more exciting partnerships like this, using AI to help close access gaps and reduce backlogs?
What to listen to š
Events š
HLTH Europe
š£ Jun 17-20
š Amsterdam
Pathfinder Womenās Health Summit
š£ Jun 26
š Birmingham
HPN South
š£ Jun 27 -28
š Heathrow
SomX Comms 102: Fundraising Essentials
š£ Jul 11
š Online
BIA Summer Party 2024
š£ Jul 11
š London
BIA Summer Party 2024
š£ Jul 11
š London
Visit the SomX events page or subscribe to SomXās events roundup to see all of the best upcoming healthtech, biotech and healthcare events
Opportunities šµļøāāļø
š¬ Programme Director, Digital, Dartford & Gravesham NHS Trust ā Expert in digital health and transformation? Experience working with healthcare providers to implement new systems that drive improvements in clinician and patient experience? Live vaguely within reach of junction 30 of the M25. You may be uniquely well suited for this role.
š¤ Research Associate in Foundational Reinforcement Learning for AI Clinician , Imperial College London ā Thereās a team at Imperial building an āAI clinicianā, and theyāre looking for a machine learning, NLP, data scientist or digital health expert to help them develop the tool as it rolls out in clinical trials. This is probably the coolest job description weāve put in this newsletter
š§āāļø Digital health Clinician, Abtrace ā If youāre a GP with a passion for digital health, the Abtrace team want to meet you. Run, donāt walk.
š·ļø Sales Director (EMEA), Maven Clinic ā One of the companies at the forefront of womenās health, with a incredible track record and a list of impressive backers so long it doesnāt fit in this little caption, wants a sales leader to drive forward their growth in Europe and the Middle East.Ā Ā
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 for 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.