#238 - Rise of the Robot Surgeons
The one-minute healthtech roundup, brought to you by SomX.
Hi friends,
This week: Women's health tech innovations, cuts to NHS AI cancer funding, and multimillion-pound investments in health tech research
Your friends all listen to podcasts. Feel like you’re in on the conversation by listening to the Healthtech Pigeon podcast ➡️ Huw and Daisy from SomX break down the best stories from this week’s newsletter, with help from Definition Health’s Dr Rosie Scott. Available now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
News Bites 🥪
💎 HealthTech is the UK’s hidden gem – the government can’t ignore it – Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates’s Russ Shaw argues that investing in healthtech could make UK healthtech 2026 as big as UK Fintech circa 2011. Pigeon can’t wait to dig out our skinny jeans, turn on our iPhone 4s, and spin Rolling in the Deep on the turntable – but only after we’ve finally worked out how to unlock investment into UK life sciences.
⚕️ AI tool tested to automate biopsy analysis for coeliac diagnosis in Cambridge – Lyzeum Ltd, a University of Cambridge spinout, is commercialising its AI tool to accelerate coeliac diagnosis, thanks to NIHR funding. The technology uses an algorithm to distinguish between healthy samples and those with coeliac disease.
👶 Researcher questions overreliance of AI chatbots for child mental health – Experts at the University of Rochester Medical Center are concerned about the ethical use of AI technology in mental healthcare. The rise of mental health apps that provide mood monitoring and mimic therapeutic techniques (think Alexa meets Sigmund Freud) risks damaging young people’s cognitive and social development.
🧑⚕️ Health Tech leaders react to Starmer’s bold restructuring – Are we in for a months or even years of disruption and uncertainty for the sector? Some people think so. Yeah, the NHS can be a bit of a barge to manoeuvre, but let’s try not to throw so much out we’re left with a tugboat, eh?
♀️ Women’s Healthtech Company Fizimed Raises €4M for International Expansion – The French femtech is committed to breaking down taboos surrounding women’s health with its flagship product, the Emy Trainer, allowing women to strengthen their pelvic muscles at home in “a fun and effective way”.
🦾 SoftBank backs surgical robotics startup CMR Surgical in $200m round — UK-based CMR Surgical is eyeing up stateside expansion of its surgical robotics system, which has been used to complete more than 30k surgeries globally for colorectal, gynaecology, thoracic and urology operations.
🚺 Covera Health launches AI platform for women’s imaging Covera Health has developed a new women’s health platform called Protect Her, which uses AI technology to identify the early signs of breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, and osteoporosis during routine scans.
✅ Trust in AI-assisted health systems and AI’s trust in humans – A study published in Nature indicates that AI's ability to maintain trust is essential to its overall effectiveness, which can be easily undermined by biases, lack of transparency and conflicting motivations. Pigeon thinks that trusting AI in healthcare involves the AI magicians revealing their tricks. Show us what’s lurking behind the curtain, people!
🩻 ‘Ridiculous’ cuts to AI cancer tech funding in England could cost lives, experts warn – The government has dramatically cut millions of pounds of funding for a potentially life-saving form of AI cancer technology, which could increase waiting times and cause more patient deaths. Look, we get it: funding’s tight and decisions have to be made. But Pigeon’s struggling with this one. That said, there are reasons they turned down our application for the CCIO job.
What to listen to 🔊
Events 📅
SomX Healthtech Talks @ Google
🕣 April 7
📍 London
LBS Healthcare Conference — Get a 25% discount on your ticket using this link
🕣 April 14 - 15
📍 London
DMEA 2025 - Connecting Digital Health
⏰ April 8-10
📍 Berlin
Digital Health 2025
⏰ April 10-11
📍 Waterloo Canada
National Health-Tech Innovation Conference
⏰ April 23-24
📍 Vancouver, Canada
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 Site Manager, Qureight – Do you have expertise in managing clinical sites, including both qualification and continuous management? This opportunity is perfect for individuals with a background in clinical trial imaging studies, image QC, and query management.
🤔 Director, Healthcare Technology Systems Consulting, CF – Senior leaders in healthcare tech to the front for this one. The position will involve leading a Center of Excellence for a high profile, multi-year contract focused on healthcare technology, overseeing the deployment of analytical platforms and health tech products across healthcare trusts..
🍌 Senior Account MManager, SKin Analytics – It’s an exciting time at Skin Analytics, following impressive regulatory progress and some big launches. This role will help build and maintain relationships with key NHS partners.
🚑 Clinical Fellow Digital Health/Artificial Intelligence Critical Care, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – Not a bad sounding role for Intensive Care Medicine trainees with a passion for digital health. OUHNHSFT is looking for someone who can champion all aspects of digital innovation across emergency care.
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.