Healthcare AI Guy Weekly | 7/23

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Our Picks ✨

Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

1/

Commure acquires Augmedix for $139M

Commure is acquiring Augmedix for $139M, a 150% premium from the current ~$1/share price but a decent fall from the $6/share it was trading at back in January. Commure, which integrates patient care and administrative functions through AI, has expanded its suite since merging with Athelas last October to create a combined $6B healthcare infrastructure company. This includes patient engagement, RPM, revenue cycle management, and staff safety. The acquisition of Augmedix, a leader in the AI scribe space, enhances Commure’s strategy, bringing over 20 health system partners including HCA Healthcare. This marks a significant move in healthcare ambient AI consolidation. (link) (tweet)

2/

Huma raises $80M to shopify healthcare

Huma raised $80M in Series D funding amid its AI digital health platform rollout. Dubbed the "Shopify for Digital Health," Huma offers modular platforms and software kits for patient engagement, remote monitoring, companion apps, and digital clinical trials. Their technology supports 1.8M users in over 3,000 hospitals and clinics globally, with partners like the NHS, Johns Hopkins, Bayer, and AstraZeneca. The upcoming Huma Cloud Platform will enable no-code app development using GenAI prompts and pre-built templates, streamlining regulatory hurdles and allowing developers to scale their apps efficiently. Huma aims to transform digital health as Shopify did for online retail. (link) (tweet)

3/

AI breakthrough improves Alzheimer’s predictions

Researchers from Cambridge University just developed a new AI tool that can predict whether patients showing mild cognitive impairment will progress to Alzheimer’s disease with over 80% accuracy. The AI model analyzes data from cognitive assessments and MRI scans — eliminating the need for costly, invasive procedures like PET scans and spinal taps. The tool categorized patients into three risk groups and accurately identified 82% of cases. With a rapidly aging global population, the number of dementia cases is expected to triple over the next 50 years — and early detection is a key factor in how effective treatment can be. (link)

Tools & Partnerships 🔧

Latest on business, consumer, and clinical healthcare AI tools and partnerships…

TOOLS

• AI helps save lives at UC San Diego Health: UC San Diego's health system uses the AI algorithm COMPOSER to predict sepsis before symptoms appear. It monitors over 150 variables, notifying nurses through the EHR if patients are at risk. Early detection has reduced sepsis mortality by 20%, saving 50 lives annually. (link)

• OpenAI has a new model — GPT-4o mini: It is a small model that beats the early version of GPT-4 and it costs 30x less than the larger GPT-4o model. You can now say bye to GPT-3.5-Turbo as 4o-mini will take its place in ChatGPT’s free tier and the API. (link)

• AI-generated messages to patients on par with clinicians: Electronic health record messages to patients drafted by generative AI were of similar quality and accuracy to those written by healthcare professionals, according to a newly published study conducted using queries from NYU Langone Health patients. (link)

• Suki brings AI scribes to community health centers: Four more community health centers are implementing Suki AI’s ambient scribe in their clinics—Utah Navajo Health System (UNHS), CenterPlace Health, Access Health Louisiana and PrimeCare Health. (link)

PARTNERSHIPS

• Abridge + UVM Health Network: the ambient scribe startup Abridge singed an enterprise-wide agreement with the academic health system UVM Health Network. (link)

• VA + Abridge / Nuance: The VA says it intends to award firm fixed-price contracts to Abridge AI and Nuance Communications to test and evaluate commercial, cloud-based, ambient scribe software in live VA environments. (link)

• Guide Health + Story Health: AI-powered value-based care company Guidehealth, which serves nearly 500,000 patients, announced a partnership with specialty care telehealth company Story Health to address high demand for cardiologists and increasing specialist care deserts. (link)

• Cone Health + Lirio: The NC-based health network is partnering with the patient engagement solution on an AI-driven intervention for patients with diabetes. (link)

Deal Desk 💸 

Spotlight on latest capital raises, M&A, and investments…

FUNDING

• Huma, a London, U.K. and New York City-based patient engagement, monitoring, and clinical trial platform, raised $80M in Series D funding from AstraZeneca, Hat Technology Fund 4 by HAT SGR, HV Fund by Hitachi Ventures, and others. (link)

• CytoReason, an Israeli developer of computational disease models for drug discovery, raised $80M from Nvidia, Pfizer, Thermo Fisher, and OurCrowd. (link)

• Q Bio, a Palo Alto, Calif., full-body scanning startup, raised $27M from Telus Global Ventures and insiders Khosla Ventures, a16z, Founders Fund and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals. (link)

• Thoughtful AI, an Austin, Texas-based developer of agents designed for revenue cycle automation teams at health care providers, raised $20M in Series A funding. Nick Solaro of Drive Capital led the round and was joined by TriplePoint Capital. (link)

• Eden, a Mexico City radiology tech startup, raised $10M in Series A funding, per Axios Pro. Sierra Ventures led, and was joined by Kaszek, Alt Capital, YC, and Khosla Ventures (link)

• Modicus Prime, an Austin, TX-based computer vision software provider that automates biologics image analysis, raised $3.5M in Seed funding. (link)

• Healthpilot, an AI-based Medicare Advantage brokerage, raised an undisclosed amount from Humana. (link)

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

• Commure + Augmedix: Commure to acquire Augmedix for $139M. In October, Commure announced plans to merge with Athelas (healthcare workflow automation software) to grab a bigger piece of the market. Augmedix has a valuable partnership with HCA can help boost AI scribe services. (link)

• GE Healthcare + Intelligent Ultrasound clinical AI business: GE HealthCare to acquire Intelligent Ultrasound's clinical AI business for $51M. This bolsters GE HealthCare’s portfolio of AI-enabled devices, adding real-time image recognition tech to enhance patient care, support OBGYN scans, and improve exam accuracy and efficiency. (link)

Other Relevant News 🔍

News, podcasts, blogs, tweets, resources, etc…

• Battle of the LLMs in healthcare—GPT vs Claude (link)

• Navigating cloud computing in healthcare with GenAI (link)

• AI has a big future for healthcare but only if workers can embrace it (link)

• Trump allies draft ‘Manhattan Project’ AI order (link)

• Which health systems have chief AI officers? (link)

• Most active health system AI investors (link)

• Peter Attia on AI in medicine (link)

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Visuals of the Week 📸

Funny memes, cool pics, and interesting data from around the web…