#68: Enter the Surgical Metaverse🫀
Hey friends,
This week: What’s the “Surgical Metaverse”? (IDK, I’m just a Pigeon. Ask all-around genius, Professor Shafi Ahmed). Why has NHS England axed NHS Digital and NHSX? Why do you think investors keep slamming the door in your face? (We share some of the red flags.) And fancy being the next CEO of a digital health company? (Check out the Opportunities section for a sensational CEO-in-Training role!)
News Bites 🥪
🇫🇷 Sanofi invests $180M in French AI startup Owkin to advance oncology pipeline - Pharma companies are clearly taking AI tools very seriously as Owkin becomes France’s latest unicorn. Owkin looks to leverage large data sets secured through partnerships with various global research institutions and hospitals to accelerate medical research.
💬 Mental health provider IESO secures $53M equipped with an “unprecedented dataset” - Another AI-based chat therapy service, what’s new? Well, IESO believes their secret sauce/unfair advantage is 1. 460,000 hours (not too shabby!) of text-based conversations between patients and therapists 2. Conversations paired with real-time data on patients’ clinical outcomes.
🛠 NHS Digital and NHSX recalled back to the mothership - What is UK healthcare’s favourite hobby? Restructuring. The two tech bodies will merge into NHS England but at what cost? Who knows. For now, the 7000-strong workforce across NHSX and NHS face some uncertainty.
🪐 The Surgical Metaverse - As Facebook doubles down on the Metaverse, Professor Shafi Ahmed, a world-renowned, multi-award-winning surgeon, futurist and innovator describes how he entered the ‘Surgical Metaverse’ for the first time in October 2017.
🚩 What are the red flags that make investors slam the door on your company? - We Pigeons are used to being shooed away but that doesn’t mean you should. Four investors share the red flags that they look out for when vetting medical device companies and deciding who to invest in.
🎮 Forget questionnaires, Thymia is bringing mental health assessments into the 21st century - Scientists in London have developed video games that leverage neuropsychology, linguistics and machine learning to diagnose and monitor depression. The aim of the game is to remove subjectivity from mental health assessments.
What to Listen to 🔊
The Healthtech Podcast - #250 The Story of Feebris with Max Antson ⚙️ - This week James is joined by Max Antson, a machine learning engineer from Feebris. Feebris are transforming community care by providing carers with intelligent smart tools, enabling them to provide more effective care to vulnerable patients. Max is on an AI-powered mission to achieve this goal!
Perspectives on Health and Tech by Cerner - Ep. 225: Addressing healthcare workforce challenges
This little Pigeon didn’t know that global electronic health record giant Cerner had a podcast series! In this episode, the guests discuss the need for healthcare workers (the grass may seem greener elsewhere but surprisingly this is NOT exclusively an NHS issue) and how organisations can implement strategies around retention, clinician burnout and more.
Opportunities 💰
💼 CEO-in-Training - Motilent, an exciting and rapid growth MedTech company specialising in the assessment of digestive disease is looking for an enthusiastic and tenacious individual to support the CEO across commercial, marketing and communication activities. For the full job description or more information, get in touch with us at pigeon@somx.co.uk
“It’s like a cross between Jon Snow on the Night’s Watch and Anne Hathaway’s character in Devil Wears Prada - just with less betrayal and a greater focus on digestive disease.”
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Find inspiration and discover how technology is revolutionising healthcare with over 25 conferences, 450 speakers, immersive workshops, Beanstalks (a global startup competition for prizes) & more.
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