#210 - Shoot for the stars, aim for the moon 🚀
#210 - Shoot for the stars, aim for the moon 🚀
The one-minute healthtech roundup brought to you by SomX.
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Hi friends,
This week: Blood tests are working overtime, the real meaning behind digital transformation, and what it would take to save the NHS billions…?
Love healthtech, hate reading? 👀 Listen to the Healthtech Pigeon podcast ➡️ Huw and James from SomX breakdown the best stories from this week’s newsletter with help from DocAbode’s Taz Aldawoud. Available now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
News Bites 🥪
🇬🇧 Neko Health, the body-scanning AI health startup from Spotify’s Daniel Ek, opens in London — Londoners, Pigeon’s got some exciting news for you! Neko Health seem to be the gift that just keeps on giving! The bodyscanning startup has opened its London clinic, offering AI-powered full-body scans that can spot early signs of heart disease, skin cancer, and more! After a strong start in Sweden, Neko is now bringing its preventative approach to healthcare across the UK.
🔄 Innovate UK reverses female founder funding decision following uproar from UK startup community – Pigeon never afraid to admit when we’re wrong, something we clearly share with the Innovate UK grant funding team*. After a major fumble led to equally major backlash, Innovate UK reversed its decision to award only half the promised grants to female founders. All 50 grants will be funded as originally pledged. Now, was that so difficult?
🚀 £35m to expand HealthTech 50 firm Doccla in Europe – The virtual ward and remote patient monitoring company seems unstoppable; it’s latest score? £35 million in Series B funding to ramp up its European presence. Already active in 10 countries and working with the NHS, they’re now aiming to expand even further into France, Germany, and beyond. Their tech lets doctors monitor patients in real time, catching issues early to prevent hospital visits.
❓ What do 'digital transformation' and 'digital health' really mean? – We could bang on about the benefits of digital health forever — and we do! (tune into the Healthtech Pigeon podcast everyday Sunday!**) But if you’re looking for another expert take, this conversation explores why healthcare needs to embrace tech to stay competitive, engage patients, and find new ways to boost revenue. After all, digital transformation isn’t just about flashy tech or AI—it’s about using technology to improve patient care and streamline efficiency.
📲 Monitoring technology in social care could save over £1.2bn for NHS – Forget virtual wards, it’s social care’s time to shine. According to a new report, the NHS could save a massive £1.2 billion by using smart, non-intrusive monitoring tech in social care. This tech tracks daily routines like movement and eating, helping spot health issues early and avoid unnecessary hospital stays (according to a definitely balanced report commissioned by Lilli, a social care monitoring technology provider).
🚺 Melodi Health raises $10.75M, enrolls first patient in study of absorbable mesh for breast cancer patients – Not only has Melodi picked up $10.75 million in an oversubscribed Series A round, it’s also kicked off its first clinical trial for the Matrix mesh, a new tool for breast reconstruction. This absorbable mesh supports soft tissue and releases antibiotics as it’s absorbed. With the trial now underway at University of Utah Health, Melodi is set to make serious waves in improving outcomes for women post-mastectomy.
🫀 Simple Blood Test Reveals Heart Disease Risk for Women Decades Before Symptoms – A recent NIH-funded study made a groundbreaking discovery in predicting women’s risk of heart disease. By measuring specific fats and C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation) in the blood, it appears possible to forecast cardiovascular risk decades earlier. Scientist or not, Pigeon knows that’ll end up paying dividends in supporting preventative healthcare.
💰 BeMe Health raises $12.5 million to tackle teen mental health crisis – Pigeon remembers our teenage years. It’s not easy fitting in when you’re a six foot tall Pigeon with a worrying obsession with hospital fax machines. If only we’d had BeMe, which launched last year to help young people manage their mental well-being with tools like live coaching, self-assessments, and even 24/7 crisis support.
🩻 Harrison.ai launches the most performance radiology-specific vision language model – Gather round everyone: Harrison.rad.1 is here. It’s neither the name of a new space shuttle nor the company’s founder’s personalised licence plate. Rather, it’s a LLM designed specifically for radiology. The model advanced capabilities such as detecting and localising findings, generating detailed reports, and reasoning based on patient history. Trained on literally millions of studies and refined by hundreds of experts, could this be a game-changer in medical AI?
What to listen to 🔊
Events 📅
Intelligent Health: Basel
🕣 Sept 11-12
📍 Basel, Switzerland
How do we design digitally enabled services that are inclusive and trusted?
🕣 Sept 16
📍 Online
Healthtech Innovation Day
🕣 Sept 17-18
📍 Paris, France
Health on Stage
🕣 Sept 19
📍Brussels, Belgium
Mental Health Innovation Network
🕣 Sept 20
📍London
HETT Show
🕣 Sept 24-25
📍London
Visit the SomX events page or subscribe to SomX’s events roundup to see all of the best upcoming healthtech, biotech and healthcare events.
Opportunities 🕵️♀️
💰 London Health Accelerator for Social Enterprise, The School for Social Entrepreneurs – Are you an entrepreneur from an underrepresented background working on solving health inequities through life science innovation? If so, you might want to check out this new accelerator program from MedCity and the School for Social Entrepreneurs. How could you say no to the opportunity to apply for a £5,000 grant and receive personalised mentoring from top experts in health and life sciences?. Applications are open now, but hurry—they close on October 7th!
🤝 Advisory Groups, WHO – Who is on the hunt for experts? WHO are on the hunt for experts! They are looking for people with scientific, technical and strategic expertise to join their advisory groups and provide guidance on key health issues. Sounds like you? Apply today!
⚡️ Product Manager, Current Health / Best Buy Health – If you’re all about technology and meaningful connections (aren’t we all?), then Current Health is the place for you. You’ll be working on the company’s dashboard products, implementing new features that help providers and consumers to better understand the data at hand.
👩💻 Full Stack Developer, Hardian Health – Our friends over at Hardian Health are looking for a full stack developer support the expansion of their in-demand internally developed prototype global regulatory intelligence database. So if you have strong technical expertise, excellent problem solving skills and want to work with experts in SaMD, AIaMD, and everything in between, you know what to do!
🩺 Director of Clinical Quality, InHealth – Ready to work with a leading UK provider of diagnostic and screening services? You’re in luck! InHealth is seeking an experienced leader to join them as their Director of Clinical Quality. In this role, you’ll play a key part in shaping and overseeing their clinical governance framework. If maintaining the highest standards of patient safety, quality, and compliance sounds like your idea of a good time, drop them a line!
*Although no one’s ever had to target us with a social media campaign (yet) …jus’ saying.
**Do excuse the shameless plug. A Pigeon’s got to do what a Pigeon’s got to do.
Got news, jobs or events you think is worth coo-ing over? Let us know! Email us: news@healthtechpigeon.com
Healthtech Pigeon is curated and produced by SomX, the 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.