#255 The new age of the Super-Pigeon
The one-minute healthtech roundup, brought to you by SomX.
Hi friends,
This week: An important week for healthtech and lots of big questions. What will Trump’s big tech medical data plans mean for privacy? How viable is the longevity startup market? Are we staring down the barrel of a new age of Super (intelligent humans) Pigeons?
Your friends all listen to podcasts. Feel like you’re in on the conversation by listening to the Healthtech Pigeon podcast ➡️ SomX’s Daisy Makin, Belle Taylor and Hollie Ruda dive into this week's healthtech news. Available now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
News Bites 🥪
🇺🇲 Trump administration launching health tracking system with big tech’s help – Everybody’s favourite occupier of the Oval Office is rolling out a characteristically controversial plan to get millions of Americans to upload their medical records onto apps run by tech giants like Google and Amazon. While our corpulent trans Atlantic counterparts clearly need all the help they can get, Pigeon is concerned that the devil’s in the…data privacy.
🦀 Cancer Alliance funding improves cancer treatments using cutting-edge technology – Win-win-win-win. Leeds Cancer Centre is first in the UK to discover an MRI-only treatment planning technique, using just a single MRI scan to map out radiotherapy, ditching the need for a CT scan in tandem. This tech-savvy move means less radiation for patients, sharper targeting, quicker planning, and fewer hospital visits.
⏰ Let a breakthrough in measuring body clocks ease the ills of shiftwork – If you (like us) thought that the “graveyard shift” was just a figure of speech…think again. Apparently working unsociable hours around the clock actually raises your risk of stroke, heart attack, and depression — as if the late nights weren’t hard enough! Not all gloom and doom though — a clever new way of measuring individual circadian rhythms could help our night pigeons sort their body clocks and rest in peace (in the good sense).
♀️UCLH launches app to help staff manage menopause symptoms – An app without AI, you say? The new UCLH menopause app gathers information on patients’ menopause symptoms straight from real clinicians to streamline medical advice and options to patients who are contemplating HRT or navigating menopause.
🆘 IT failure leaves staff at two hospitals relying on paper days before doctors strike – Major IT outage left NHS staff scrambling for pens and paper to keep the show on the road. This tech blackout disrupted telephone systems, temporarily diverted heart attack patients to Bristol. Do we need to have a better “plan B” when the tech fails?
🧠 Zuckerberg says AI superintelligence is 'in sight,' touts 'new era of personal empowerment' – Meta Chief Zuck has announced that superintelligent AI is “now in sight”(didn’t we all know this already?). In true Meta style, their plans for the super-duper-intelligence are to improve our personal lives, but Pigeon’s on the fence. Although morphing into a superhuman could be cool, it sounds a little exhausting.
🤑 Why VC-backed longevity startups are dying in a $5 trillion wellness market – While the secret of eternal beauty has always sadly eluded Pigeon, the market is very much alive with the longevity and wellness sector boasts $40 billion in health tech VC funding. Yet many startups are faltering. Is the rhetoric around healthspan clashing with cold hard realities that lead to true commercialisation?
🧬 DNA test can predict if a 5-year-old will be obese as an adult – Early interventions at their finest! It’s pretty impressive that a new DNA test can spot the future signs of obesity, these tests can be performed on children before their genetic risk profile has a chance to shape their weight, giving parents and children the opportunity to stop obesity in its tracks It turns out that your anatomy is not your destiny after all (we just need a scientist to tell us early).
🇰🇪 AI helps prevent medical errors in real-world clinics - Overworked clinicians in Nairobi, Kenya, received a helping hand with a clinical copilot developed in partnership between OpenAI and Penda Health. On the face of it, the trial appears to have led to an impressive 16% reduction in diagnostic errors and a 13% drop in treatment errors but when you unpick the data and methodology (Catch James and Phil Wicks doing just that on The Healthtech Podcast), there are still some significant question marks - not least because the study was a pre-print which should never have been destined for the marketing megaphone anyway. Consider Pigeon’s feathers ruffled.
What to Listen to 🔊
Events 📅
OHT London: Summer Health Innovators Networking Breakfast
⏰ Aug 5
📍 London
HealthTech Connect: Networking for health startups, investors, innovators
⏰ Aug 12
📍 London
Transforming primary care, examples of innovation, data and change
⏰ Aug 12
📍 Online
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 🕵️♀️
💡 Project Manager (Health Data Innovation), Health Innovation East - Are you a skilled orchestrator eager to unlock the value of health data? Take the lead in designing, coordinating, and delivering complex, multi-stakeholder programmes that connect the NHS, research, and life sciences sectors, driving innovation and health impact with dynamic, purpose-driven teams.
🧑💻 Innovation Manager, Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex - Are you passionate about leading strategic partnerships across digital, medtech, diagnostics, and pharma sectors? This role provides an opportunity to drive impactful collaborations that support commercialisation, real-world validation, and accelerated adoption of health technologies aligned to NHS priorities.
🏴 Engagement Manager, Life Sciences Hub Wales - Ready to spark innovation across Wales? Lead regional engagement by building trusted partnerships across health, social care, industry, academia, and the third sector, connecting ideas and opportunities to accelerate health and care innovation.
Got news, jobs or events you think are 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.