#229 - Adopt, Scale, Resist and Complain 😡
The one-minute healthtech roundup, brought to you by SomX.
Hi friends,
This week: UK doctors aren’t using AI (but the Europeans are…), A new initiative to drive better regulation of health AI, and the CEO of a now-defunct AI company takes a parting shot at NHS procurement.
Your friends all listen to podcasts. Be interesting at your next dinner party by listening to the Healthtech Pigeon podcast ➡️ James, Huw and Daisy from SomX breaks down the best stories from this week’s newsletter. Available now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
News Bites 🥪
🖲️ UK healthcare sector falling behind on AI adoption, study shows – Our continental clinical cousins are using AI more than UK healthcare professionals, as our nerves get the better of us and trust continues to be the hardest word. So what do French, German and Danish clinicians know that UK ones don't ... .or are they simply more laissez-faire, entspannt and afslappet in their approach to innovation?**
🎓 Oxford-US partnership could be good news for ambitious health tech startup – Oxford-based startups (and by extension, the rest of the country? It’s going to be the UK’s silicon valley any time now) are about to get a much-needed shot in the arm, thanks to a new trans-Atlantic partnership between Oxford Science Enterprises and LA hospital giant Cedars-Sinai.
🤖 Project launched to improve regulation of AI healthcare devices – Red tape sucks. It's why you have to wait until Sunday for this newsletter despite it being written on a Thursday*. Boffins at Brunel University feel the same way, so they’ve kickstarted a project to overcome the trials and tribulations of AI regulation and bring new AI tech products to the UK.
🍝 Health tech tackles food safety for restaurants – Healthtech or foodtech? You decide. New York-based startup Pathspot is looking to make dodgy dining a thing of the past with its new food hygiene hand scanner, which helps restaurant workers detect dirty hands, so their customers don’t end up paying for it the next day.
🤑 Quibim lands $50M to transform healthcare with AI-powered human digital twins – Revolutionising healthcare is so last year. Everybody’s ‘redefining’ and ‘transforming’ stuff now. That said, Pigeon’s optimistic about digital twins and their potential in healthcare – and so, clearly, are investors – as Spanish startup Quibim’s digital doppelganger just received a serious cash injection.
🇬🇧 London HealthTech acquired by global software provider – Everybody wants a piece of UK healthtech…and who can blame them? UK EHR provider Meddbase’s has been scooped up by Canadian ESG, employee health and regulatory compliance software firm Cority. If that seems like an odd mix of sectors to be involved in, there’s a saying about eggs and baskets we can point you to.
💥 UK health AI firm criticises NHSE procurement as it goes bust – Pigeon can’t help but call sour grapes on this one – even if the questions raised about government investment are reasonable. UK radiology AI company Behold.ai’s CEO threw the ultimate tech strop and hit out at the NHS’s procurement approach for backing competitors in India and Australia. We’re not going to lie, we’d be sad if the NHS invested in ‘What The Health?’ and not us.
😷 Hyfe and ActiGraph Partner to Deliver Continuous Cough Monitoring – This throat-clearing tech gem enables coughs to be analysed alongside digital biomarkers to help detect serious health conditions like COPD and asthma. Sure, it’s going to be of incredible value in the clinical trials space, but Pigeon’s betting this tech will be in your fitbit by 2026.
What to listen to 🔊
Events 📅
Parliament & HealthTech Conference
⏰ February 4th
📍London
Health Economics: Building the Case for Innovation
⏰ February 5th
📍Zoom
HSJ Digital Transformation Summit
🕣 Feb 6-7
📍 Birmingham
Empowered by innovation: Women shaping the future of HealthTech
🕣 February 6th
📍 Leeds
Radiology AI Summit
🕣 Feb 11-13
📍 London
HETT Show North
🕣 Feb 26
📍 Manchester
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 🕵️♀️
Director, Consulting Healthcare Technology Systems, CF – Carnall Farrar is on the hunt for a health tech systems expert. This role is not for the faint-hearted and will involve leading a Center of Excellence for a high-profile contract focused on healthcare technology in the NHS.
AI Practice Manager – This role is a data geek’s dream and will involve using the power of AI to spearhead the next phase of the consultancy’s growth, supe up their operations and deliver great customer experience. For AI aficionados only…
Medical Content Manager, Doctify — Feel like you’ve got all those medical words (‘doctor’, ‘stethoscope’, ‘appendectomy’,) nailed down? Doctify are looking for someone to own the approval process for new words to be added to their platform. Could you be the right person for the job?
Clinical Psychologist, speek — Qualified clinical psychologist looking for a part time gig? Interested in helping an early stage startup launch a new service and improve access to care for young people? This is your lucky day.
*But it’d be in way worse a shape if we didn’t have those 5 people read it first, so red tape’s not all bad.
**Pigeon’s learned some fun new words today (and probably got them wrong).
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.