#262 Brain stim & Pharma looking grim
The one-minute healthtech roundup, brought to you by SomX and kindly sponsored by Whereby - secure video calls for telehealth.
Hi friends,
This week: £1bn NHS savings, £2bn big pharma losses.
Your friends all listen to podcasts. Be interesting at your next dinner party by listening to the Healthtech Pigeon podcast ➡️ SomX’s Jessica is joined by James on his first ep back from paternity leave, and Boobybiome’s CEO Lydia Mapstone to spill the tea (but crucially not milk) on the company's recent raise. Available now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Integrating video calling into digital health can be a challenge and in reality, “good enough”, rarely is. Security gaps, clunky experiences, and unreliable connections all risk eroding patient trust. Whereby is different. For over a decade, we’ve partnered with healthcare professionals to move away from mediocre by delivering secure, reliable, and easy-to-use video consultations. Our flexible API makes it simple to embed video calls directly into your platform, reducing engineering overhead, leaving you to focus on what you do best.
News Bites 🥪
💰 £1bn AI home care savings spotlight urgent need for public sector tech reform – An AI-driven approach to home care has saved the NHS over £1bn, enough to fund 25,000 nurses or a one-bed house deposit in zone 2. The company behind the savings, Cera, use data gathered during home visits to spot health risks up to a week in advance, giving carers more time with patients and fewer visits to A&E. The challenge now isn’t whether it works, but how to scale it across the NHS. Pigeon will let the experts wrestle with that one.
🚺 Is Europe’s AI boom is leaving femtech behind? – Europe’s investors are so besotted with AI that healthtech, serving, you know, half the population, is being sidelined. Despite a €30bn market, funding is plunging, leaving startups tackling menopause, fertility, and endometriosis fighting for scraps. Pigeon can’t help but wonder why. Karolina Löfqvist, CEO and co-founder of Hormona raised a $6.7M seed round and put her thoughts into this article.
⌚️Continuous glucose monitors are not a silver bullet for public health – There’s nothing quite like US politics at the minute for effective rage bait, so The Washington Post made sure to mention RFK Jr. every other sentence as they questioned his push on continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) as a tool for personalised nutrition. He wants every American in a wearable within four years. Many say he should focus on bigger priorities like protecting research funding and vaccine access. The Washington Post says “In a word, *sigh.*”
⏸️ Big pharma firms have paused nearly £2bn in UK investments this year – This is quite scary. Big pharma is retreating from the UK. MSD, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly have all hit pause on major projects this year, costing jobs and seriously rattling confidence in the life sciences sector. The clash is over drug pricing: pharma says Britain undervalues new medicines, ministers insist their “generous” deal still stands and they’re gearing up for discussions with Donald Trump. Pigeon would love to sit back and watch them spar, but the reality is patients are already paying the price.
🧠 Personalised brain stimulation shows depression benefits – A UCLA study found that six days of HD-tDCS (catchy), a precise, low-level form of brain stimulation - lifted mood in people with depression with minimal side effects. The benefits kicked in faster than therapy or medication and lasted for weeks. You might’ve heard of Flow Neuroscience - their headset uses tDCS and this is the ‘high def’ version of the technology, focally stimulating 'one' cortical region. Seems like a very interesting area.
📲 Samsung's Health app might be getting an AI health coach – Looks like big tech is stepping deeper into Pigeon’s healthtech office and Samsung just presented its latest move, the AI-powered Samsung Health Assistant. It acts as a wellness wingman, answering questions about sleep, activity, and healthy habits. With Fitbit, Whoop, Oura, and Apple in the race, it’s clear that healthcare is the next frontier for tech giants, but over here at Pigeon HQ, we do wish there was some sort of anti-dystopia-council that could prevent our time soon being spent either on a run, being told to go on a run, or feeling guilty that we’re not on a run.
📈 Doctor.One raises €4M to scale asynchronous chronic care across Europe– Punctuation nightmare, Warsaw-based Doctor.One raised €4 million to take its chronic care platform, which helps patients stay in touch between visits, into Germany, Spain, and the UK. Already partnering with pharma giants and EU cancer projects, it has supported nearly half a million patient interactions. With plans to grow revenue eightfold, Doctor.One is positioning itself as every chronic patient’s favourite digital sidekick.
🌴 Scaling healthcare 20X with reliable video calls - When COVID came calling and clinics across Latin America closed their doors, Costa Rica–based Huli had to move fast. Rather than relying on a (Pigeon) wing and a prayer, the company embedded Whereby’s video consultations directly into its platform to make sure thousands of doctors could keep caring for patients during the crisis. Five years later, video is now a cornerstone of Huli’s ecosystem, supporting 10,000+ professionals and powering 20X growth; proof that reliable telehealth can anchor scale even in the toughest times.
What to Listen to 🔊
Events 📅
Managing the Pressure - how we can reduce the risk to improve the outcomes
📅 Sept 23
📍London
TEDxNHS 2025
📅 Sept 27
📍London
When Fast-Growth Companies meet Impact Capital and Mission-driven Investors
📅 Sept 29
📍Leeds
Rock Health Summit
📅 Sept 30
📍San Francisco
BMJ Future Health conference
📅 Nov 6 - 7
📍 London
Opportunities 🕵️♀️
🤱🏻 Calling all startups supporting young people with cancer - Young Lives vs Cancer’s Innovation Lab is backing bold healthcare and technology ideas to transform lives. With a focus on mental wellbeing, financial hardship, education and employment, personalised care, and diagnosis experiences, they offer access to financial investment, rich real-world data, collaboration with frontline practitioners, and most importantly, direct insight from young people and families. If you’re driven to make a difference and ready to co-create with those who’ve lived it, they want to hear from you.
📈 Strategic Account Executive, Healthcare, Microsoft – Do you have experience driving digital transformation, closing large deals, and brushing shoulders with leader-level NHS executives? If so, Pigeon might just have the perfect opportunity for you.
📲 Senior Data Scientist | Health, Quantium – Ready to step into your next role, leading the delivery of analytics and AI-driven solutions while applying cutting-edge data science to real-world healthcare challenges? What are you waiting for! No time like the present.
📖 Head of Regulatory and Compliance, Doccla – Haven’t got the memo? Regulation is indeed sexy. Why not use your regulatory know-how to provide strategic leadership through the complex global landscape you know all too well? Apply today!
🧑💻 Implementation Manager, Accurx– If you’re a whizz at risk management, problem-solving, and critical thinking, why not put those skills to the test at Accurx? You’ll lead the delivery and implementation of solutions that improve patient communication and care outcomes.