Healthcare AI Guy Weekly Newsletter | 4/16

Our Picks ✨

Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

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Rock Health’s Q1 2024 digital health funding report

Rock Health released its Q1 2024 Digital Health Funding Report, full of helpful insights on the healthtech funding market. Overall, total funding dollars were down slightly versus 2020 and 2023, but deal volume was up slightly versus those years so it seems that we are in a new digital health funding cycle. AI-related startups stole the show during Q1, driving a record share of funding. Highlights below:

• AI-enabled companies captured 40% of Q1’s funding total ($1.1B across 45 deals), compared to 33% of 2023 and 29% of 2022

• Areas with the most perceived promise for AI in healthcare: scribing, precision medicine, and care enablement

• Abridge raised a colossal $150M Series C, AI precision health company Zephyr AI landed a $111M Series A, and other promising AI startups landed huge rounds, including Ambience Healthcare ($70M), Fabric ($60M), and Codametrix ($40M)

All in all, expectations seem to have been reset for digital health startups, causing them to evolve their strategies and reorient around different metrics of success (strong outcomes / margins vs. high projected growth). There is still plenty of potential in tech-enabled healthcare, and AI startups are leading the way. (link)

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Collaborative Robotics raises $100M Series B

Collaborative Robotics, a leader in the development of practical collaborative robots (cobots) founded by a former Amazon robotics VP, raised $100M in Series B funding. General Catalyst led the round and was joined by new and existing investors including Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, and Mayo Clinic. This latest round brings the total funding raised to over $140M in less than two years.

Cobots offer broad utility at an affordable cost compared to more complex robots like humanoids. These machines work alongside humans to improve productivity and reduce operational costs. Cobots combine the power of automation with human problem-solving, streamlining workflows, alleviating employee strain and reducing errors. The company’s first cobot is about six feet tall with four wheels, sensors, and carts and is set to work alongside humans in healthcare and other industries. This is much needed in healthcare where a lack of efficiency, employee burnout and rising costs remain top of mind — all eyes are on the in-hospital trials that plan to begin later this year. (link)

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AI Index Report

The AI Index Report 2024 from Stanford University highlights significant trends and milestones in the AI sector. This year’s AI Index introduced a new chapter on AI in science and medicine in recognition of AI’s growing role in scientific and medical discovery. It examines medical AI system performance, important 2023 AI-driven medical innovations, and trends in the approval of FDA AI-related medical devices. Here are the highlights:

• Highly knowledgeable medical AI has arrived: Over the past few years, AI systems have shown remarkable improvement on the MedQA benchmark, a key test for assessing AI’s clinical knowledge. The standout model of 2023, GPT-4 Medprompt, reached an accuracy rate of 90.2%, marking a 22.6 percentage point increase from the highest score in 2022. Since the benchmark’s introduction in 2019, AI performance on MedQA has nearly tripled.

• Scientific progress accelerates even further with AI: In 2022, AI began to advance scientific discovery. 2023, however, saw the launch of even more significant science-related AI applications—from AlphaDev, which makes algorithmic sorting more efficient, to GNoME, which facilitates the process of materials discovery.

• AI helps medicine take significant strides forward: In 2023, several significant medical systems were launched, including EVEscape, which enhances pandemic prediction, and AlphaMissence, which assists in AI-driven mutation classification. AI is increasingly being utilized to propel medical advancements.

• The FDA approves more and more AI-medical devices: In 2022, the FDA approved 139 AI-related medical devices, a 12.1% increase from 2021. Since 2012, the number of FDA-approved AI-related medical devices has increased by more than 45-fold. AI is increasingly being used for real-world medical purposes.

  (link)

Tools & Partnerships 🔧

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

TOOLS

• HeartBeam using AI for detecting arrhythmias: HeartBeam announced new data demonstrating that applying its AI algorithms to vectorcardiography showed considerably improved performance (+28%) in the detection of atrial flutter over the standard process. (link)

• 3DLOOK: 3DLOOK launches FitXpress, an AI-powered body scanning platform for health brands. (link)

• HealthKey: AI-powered summaries to simplify medical records. (link)

PARTNERSHIPS

• Bayer + Google Cloud: Google Cloud and Bayer are developing an AI-powered platform that aims to help radiologists diagnose patients and work through cases more quickly. The platform’s genAI flags anomalies within images for radiologists to look at, and it can also pull up relevant information from that patient’s medical history. (link)

• UMass Chan Medical School + MITRE: UMass Chan Medical School and MITRE announced plans to open an assurance lab to test healthcare AI technologies. Massachusetts pledged $555,000 to support the new health AI assurance lab. (link)

• Apixio + Vim: Apixio, a healthcare data and analytics company, and Vim, a point-of-care connection platform, launched a platform-to-platform partnership. Integrating Apixio’s AI insights and predictions into Vim’s EHR point-of-care connections enables clinicians to spend more time on patient care and less on administrative work. (link)

• Andor Health + Augmedix: Ambient AI company Augmedix announced a new integration with Andor Health’s cloud-based communication and collaboration platform for virtual care. The duo will integrate physician clinical note creation directly within ThinkAndor Virtual Visits, allowing for AI-generated notes to be available seconds after the virtual session. (link)

• CHN + Notable: Indiana-based Community Health Network is deploying Notable’s AI platform for healthcare operations to improve patient loyalty and increase staff efficiency across 200+ sites of care. The initial deployment will focus on resource-intensive processes such as automated chart review, care gap scheduling, and pre-visit planning. (link)

• Greenway Health + Nabla: Health IT services provider Greenway Health is partnering with Nabla to debut Greenway Clinical Assist, which uses a blend of proprietary and industry-leading LLMs to transcribe patient-provider encounters and instantly generate structured clinical notes. The partnership will integrate Nabla’s ambient AI assistant with Greenway’s Prime Suite and Intergy EHR solutions, slashing up to two hours of documentation and administrative workload per provider. (link)

Deal Desk 💸 

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

FUNDING

• Collaborative Robotics, a CA-based developer of practical collaborative robots for industries like manufacturing, healthcare, and retail/e-commerce, raised $100M in Series B funding. General Catalyst led the round and was joined by Bison Ventures, Industry Ventures, Lux Capital, and existing investors Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, and others. (link)

• Grow Therapy, a NYC-based platform that connects prospective therapy patients with therapists and provides insurance billing, electronic record keeping, and other tools, raised $88M in Series C funding. Sequoia Capital led the round and was joined by Goldman Sachs Alternatives and PLUS Capital. (link)

• Dot Compliance, a provider of an AI-enabled quality management system for life sciences organizations, raised $17.5M in a Series B extension. IGP Capital and Vertex Ventures led the round and was joined by TPY Capital. (link)

Other Relevant News 🔍

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

• The algorithm journey map: a tangible approach to implementing AI solutions in healthcare (link)

• Seven states adopt new AI regulatory framework (link)

• National Academy of Medicine issues code of conduct for healthcare AI (link)

• Patient-centric medtech, AI innovations aim to improve health outcomes (link)

• Experts debate benefits of AI mammogram review (link)

• Some patients, professionals still skeptical over genAI use in healthcare (link)

Visuals of the Week 📸

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