#244 - It's All in the Mind 🧠
The one-minute healthtech roundup, brought to you by SomX.
Hey friends,
This week: Mind control is the next big health innovation, Mark Zuckerberg wants to build you a friend, and are only 30% of organisations using AI?
Your friends all listen to podcasts. Feel like you’re in on the conversation by listening to the Healthtech Pigeon podcast ➡️ SomX’s Huw Penson and Amy Thomas dive into the weeks’ healthtech stories with the help of HLTH’s Henry Stoneley. Available now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
News Bites 🥪
🇫🇮 The new Finland: How Portugal has become a hub for health tech innovation – Move over, Finland! Portugal is quickly emerging as a major player in health tech, boasting 4,719 startups – a stunning 16% jump since 2023. What’s making the difference, do we think? Could it be the sun, the food, or the remarkably supportive environment for health innovation and validation?
👂 This life-changing piece of health tech is getting cheaper — and more advanced – Hearing aid tech is getting a serious makeover, becoming more sophisticated and seamlessly integrated into everyday gadgets like AirPods and glasses.
🤓 Mark Zuckerberg wants you to have more friends … but AI – Loneliness is a real issue, to which Meta Chief Mark Zuckerberg believes AI could be a solution. In a Zuck-endorsed world, chatbots could function as friends, therapists and business agents and fully transform social interaction. We’re sceptical, but what do we know? When we needed a friend, we drew a Dodo with similar interests.
🍏 Apple has teamed up with Synchron to develop tech that lets people control its devices with thoughts – Science fiction meets reality this week, as Apple and Synchron unveil tech that aims to help people with serious medical conditions that limit hand use, such as spinal cord injuries and ALS. We called our local Apple Store to ask if it was also available to hyper-intelligent pigeons and weren’t impressed by the contemptuous response. (Seriously though, try playing Candy Crush Saga with just the tip of your wings – you’ll soon see what an Angry Bird looks like).
🤖 Only 30% of health and social providers using AI, new survey reveals – Is health and social care behind the curve when it comes to AI adoption? So says a survey conducted on behalf of Access Partnership, which found health and social care had the lowest adoption rates among 12 industries surveyed, ranking only just above not-for-profits (29%). Let’s just say we have our doubts…
📋 Health inequalities - an update to NICE’s methods for health technology evaluation – And finally, in a NICE has updated its health technology evaluations to prioritise the reduction of health inequalities and to better serve the most disadvantaged groups in society.
📈 OpenAI Releases HealthBench Dataset to Test AI in Health Care – A novel step forward from Open AI as it aims to come up with a method for directly comparing the performance of different health AI models. We’re struggling to get over the idea they’re marking their own homework a little here – particularly when OpenAI’s model came out top. Seems legit.
🐢 TORTUS and X-on Health expand AI assistant across primary care – Another top partnership in the world of Ambient scribes dropped this week, hot on the heels of last month’s Accurx/Tandem collab.
🦄 The talent behind health tech unicorns: A look at the builders and how AI will shape the next generation – What does it take to build a unicorn? If your first answer was: “a horse and a cornetto”, you’re 100% reading the right newsletter.
What to listen to 🔊
Events 📅
Not one, not two, but three featured events… and as they say, three’s a charm 🪄
FEATURED: Techsperts, this one’s for you. Google Cloud’s Future of Health and Life Sciences Tech Forum - June 6th, 2025, London
Calling all technical experts, data scientists, machine learning engineers and founders at the forefront of healthcare, life sciences, and biotech - Google Cloud is throwing open it’s doors and you’re invited. Prepare for a day full day of practical insights, deep technical sessions, and exclusive hands-on-access to Google’s frontier technologies.
FEATURED: Get in, we’re going to Amsterdamn - HLTH Europe, the final countdown! - June 16-19th, 2025, Amsterdam
Unless you’ve been living under a rock to you’ll have heard about HLTH Europe, because frankly none of us have stopped talking about it since last year. Whatsapp groups are already amock with talk of boat parties, run clubs and how to score a limited edition Petunia Unicorn, so if you’re still sitting on the fence, it’s time to get off and book your ticket. Thanks to retired Pigeon Fancier* turned Unicorn Guardian Henry, HE25_HENRY250 gets you a tasty morsel of discount.
FEATURED: The Glastonbury of Healthtech is coming to Oxfordshire! Join us at THE FIX! - September 18th, 2025, Harwell Science Campus
Women’s Health, Longevity, Psychedelics, AI, mental health and a host of other hot topics are set be covered at a healthtech festival like no other. Expect counter-intuitive formats, fresh ideas and hangouts with industry rockstars! Use the code SOMX15 for 15% off your ticket price.
The Digital Healthcare Innovation Summit
⏰May 19-20
📍Boston, USA
Newton’s Tree: Unfiltered AI Leadership: Transparent Conversations about Medical AI
⏰ May 20
📍 Online
HealthTechX Asia 2025
⏰ May 21-22
📍 Singapore
HealthTech Forum 2024
⏰ May 23
📍 London, UK
SXSW London
⏰ June 2-7
📍 London
Radical Health
⏰ June 3-7
📍 Helsini, FInland
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 🕵️♀️
Operations Lead for Infant Nutrition Products, BoobyBiome — Product ops lead looking to get in at the early stage of a company transforming infant health? Pigeon favourites BoobyBiome are looking for you. What are you waiting for?
Head of Commercial, 52 North Health – Neutropenic sepsis detectors 52 North Health wants an experienced commercial lead with a knack for negotiation to help scale into and across new markets. It’s rare to find such an inspiring team, so get on it before you miss out.
Senior Consultant – Medical Affairs, LUCENT – Ready to play a part in bringing new medicines to patients? Join LUCENT and help support their clients to do just that.
Senior Consultant - London, UK, Cambridge Healthcare Research – Another role for a budding consultant with a life sciences background to help push forward biotech projects for clients, as part of CHR’s Solici brand. Don’t wait!
*Hey Google, define Pigeon Fancier.
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.