#231- Artificial Intelligence: Friend or Foe❓
The one-minute healthtech roundup, kindly sponsored by SciQ: Healthtech recruitment, by ex-industry professionals.
Hi friends,
This week: AI being used as a tool for evil, NHS is cutting down on the red tape, and we’re answering major questions on morality.
Your friends all listen to podcasts. Be interesting at your next dinner party by listening to the Healthtech Pigeon podcast ➡️ James, Huw and Taffy from SomX break down the best stories from this week’s newsletter. Available now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
This week’s edition of Healthtech Pigeon is powered by our friends at SciQ, the HealthTech Recruitment Specialists. SciQ connect the best candidates with organisations that make the biggest impact to the health of current and future generations. Find the talent your business needs to scale.
News Bites 🥪
🐷 Perci Health integrates prevention and early intervention into its virtual clinic – Mama Pigeon always said, “Prevention is better than cure.” She meant wearing a jacket to avoid a cold, but the logic is sound. She’d be thrilled to hear that Perci Health is expanding its virtual clinic to focus on cancer prevention and early detection with personalised risk assessments, genetic counseling, and lifestyle coaching to help people make smarter health choices.
📝 NICE consults on changes to its HealthTech programme – While Pigeon is baffled we weren’t consulted on this healthtech programme, we’re glad to see NICE making it easier for innovative medical technologies to gain NHS approval. Instead of requiring devices to be cost-saving, independent committees will now assess them based on overall cost-effectiveness. Let’s hope this means these solutions will reach patients faster!
🩺 Guidance to simplify medtech procurement to launch in 2025 – Are we finally cutting through the NHS procurement red tape that keeps healthtechs down? In this new guidance, patient impact, efficiency, and innovation could now be prioritised over just cost-cutting. The new value-based plan also includes a “passport model” to streamline approvals, meaning you won’t have to jump through hoops every time you want to work with the NHS. Result!
🤖 AI: A Good Tool to Combat Bad Actors in Healthcare – Come on, people, have you never seen a superhero movie? We’re supposed to use our powers for good! Sadly, some missed the memo, using AI to commit healthcare fraud. Luckily, AI is also the solution as investigators can now spot emerging fraud patterns, improving detection speed and accuracy. After all, who better to fight tech-savvy criminals than… more tech?
💰HealthTech startup Avelios Medical secures €30 million to modernise hospital IT systems -You don’t want to know what Pigeon would do with £30 million. Thankfully for those startups will no longer have to compete for a share of our Pigeon-tech fund, that cash has gone to Avelios Medical instead, funding a next-gen hospital information system to streamline processes, reduce admin work, and make patient data actually useful.
🤝 Dawn Health and Novartis Launch Digital Support App for Breast Cancer Patients – The two life sciences powerhouses have teamed up to launch Cora BC, a new app designed to help breast cancer patients manage treatment because they shouldn’t have to worry about juggling meds, appointments, and everything in between. Launching first in Germany, the app offers health tracking, medication reminders, and tools to make doctor visits more productive.
💭 Should AI be used in end-of-life medical decisions? – AI is getting great at reading X-rays, but should it also decide when to pull the plug? Harvard bioethicist Rebecca Weintraub Brendel (and Pigeon) isn’t so sure. While AI’s a helpful tool for insights, humans should still steer the big moral decisions. After all, putting the robots in charge of life-and-death decisions feels like we might be running head first into robot supremacy.
💶 Nina Capital's new €50M fund sets sights on early-stage healthtechs – The female-founded Barcelona-based VC firm plans to invest in 25 companies across Europe that are focusing on diagnostics, medical devices, clinician training, and healthcare efficiency. If you are an early-stage startup working in these spaces, maybe get those pitch decks spruced up?
🇦🇺 Australian health tech startup Harrison.ai scores $112M Series C — Harrison.ai has only gone and done it again. They have just bagged a cool $112M in funding to expand its AI-powered diagnostic tools globally. Their software, Annalise.ai for radiology and Franklin.ai for pathology, acts as a "second pair of eyes" for doctors helping detect diseases faster and more accurately.
☢️ Astral Systems secures £4.5M to bring nuclear breakthroughs to healthcare — Bringing nuclear fusion to healthcare? We’re all living in 2025 while Astral Systems are in way into 2065. Their compact fusion reactors produce medical isotopes on demand, cutting out the need for massive nuclear plants. It gets even better, Astral claims to have cracked fusion efficiency at a fraction of the cost of traditional reactor, so much so that even NASA took notice. Impressive.
What to listen to 🔊
Events 📅
Digital Health and Care Scotland 2024
⏰ February 21 - 22
📍Edinburgh
HSJ Digital Transformation Summit
🕣 Feb 6-7
📍 Birmingham
HETT Show North
🕣 Feb 26
📍 Manchester
Innovation and Technology Conference and Exhibition 2024
🕣 Feb 27
📍 The Royal Society of Medicine, London
AIMday HealthTech
🕣 Feb 29
📍 📍The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
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 🕵️♀️
🥼 Clinical Associate, Hardian Health – Now, don’t think just because Pigeon knows the boss you’re a shoe in for this role. However, if you have experience working in the medical devices industry, great problem solving skills and a whizz at statistics, Pigeon may be able to put in a good word for you. Apply today!
🩺 Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) - Antiverse – Keen to join a company transforming drug discovery? Antiverse are on the hunt for a CSO who can build a differentiated biologics pipeline by leveraging their AI-driven platform for epitope-specific antibody design. Pigeon doesn’t know what any of that means, but if you do, you just may what Antiverse are looking for.
📹 Media Officer, The Royal College of Radiologists – Do you have experience delivering press campaigns? Have you worked closely with policy and public affairs colleagues? Can you create and deliver effective communications strategies? Did you answer yes to those three questions? Well, what are you waiting for, you know what to do!
🧑💻 Downstream Marketing Manager, synchron – If you’re a pro at handling communications with key stakeholders and know how to nail both tactical and strategic marketing, Pigeon’s got the perfect role for you!
🥜 Growth Manager – (Squirrel™ AI SaaS Compliance Platform) — Pigeon hasn’t quite figured out what sound squirrels make, so. while we ponder on, turn your attention to this great role. Acorn Compliance are looking for someone who can define, build, and execute a growth strategy to drive customer their acquisition through the roof. Sound like you? Apply today!
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.