Digital health news, funding roundup in the prior week; June 27, 2022

Steven Loeb · June 27, 2022 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/5468

Supreme Court overturned Roe; K Health partnered with the Mayo Clinic; SteadyMD bought BlocHealth

Top Health News

  • The United States Supreme Court removed protections for abortion, ruling 6-3 to uphold a Mississippi abortion ban being challenged in the case and 5-4 to overturn Roe vs Wade. The court’s 79-page ruling upholds Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, which restricts abortions performed 15 weeks after conception. The legislation has been imitated across several other states, particularly in the weeks following a leak of the draft version of today’s opinion. Thirteen states, including Mississippi, have “trigger laws” in place that banned abortion upon the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Still more began moving abortion restrictions through their legislative processes following the May leak of the draft opinion. More than half of all states are expected to pursue such laws now that the draft decision is official.
  • Walgreens Health announced a new collaboration with Buckeye Health Plan to bring innovative health and wellness services to Medicaid members in five northeast Ohio neighborhood locations this summer. Buckeye Health Plan, an Ohio managed care company, is the third payer to partner with Walgreens Health to launch Walgreens Health Corner locations. With additional partners in California and New Jersey across commercial and Medicare plan patient populations respectively, Walgreens Health is now contracted to serve more than 2.27 million patients. By the end of 2022, the number of current Walgreens Health Corners will expand from 55 to approximately 100 locations, which include the additional five in Ohio.
  • Epic announced its plan to join The Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), a new health information exchange framework to improve health data interoperability across the country. This will bring information networks together to help ensure that all people benefit from complete, longitudinal health records wherever they receive care. In the future, TEFCA will expand to support use cases beyond clinical care, such as public health.
  • ShiftKey, a platform for connecting independent licensed healthcare professionals with open shifts at healthcare facilities, made a strategic investment in OnShift, a provider of workforce management technology for post-acute and long-term care facilities. The vision behind this partnership is to provide facilities with a wholistic view of their schedule showing their own workforce and independent workers in one place to create visibility into their costs and continuing to offer flexibility for how to meet the needs of their business.
  • K Health, a health service that uses AI to find answers about symptoms, partnered with the Mayo Clinic to develop an artificial intelligence diagnosis model built to help doctors quickly identify better hypertension treatments for their patients. K Health developed a personalized hypertension treatment algorithm that uses de-identified data from the Mayo Clinic to help reduce the time between diagnosis and treatment. The data points include demographics, medical history, lab results, medications prescribed and outcomes.
  • The Biden administration announced it is authorizing commercial laboratories to conduct monkeypox tests in an attempt to expand testing as the US confronts a record outbreak that experts fear is far larger than the official count of 156 cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started shipping test kits to five commercial laboratory companies this week, allowing health providers to order tests from the labs directly by early July. The companies include Quest Diagnostics, Sonic Healthcare, Labcorp, Mayo Clinic Laboratories and Aegis Sciences.

M&A

  • B2B telehealth infrastructure company SteadyMD acquired clinician licensing, credentialing, and payer enrollment platform BlocHealth
  • Animal health company Zoetis completed its acquisition of Basepaws, a petcare genetics company
  • Blueprint Prep, an education company focused on support for lifelong professional advancement and test preparation in the medical field, acquired Sarah Michelle NP Reviews, a provider of courses and training resources for aspiring nurse practitioners
  • Transaction Data Systems, a provider of pharmacy-focused, patient-centric solutions, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire PrescribeWellness, a provider of patient relationship management solutions, from Tabula Rasa HealthCare a healthcare technology company advancing the safe use of medications
  • Health Sense Ai, an affiliate of patient safety solution provider HD Nursing, acquired a majority interest in Envision Analytics, a developer of a thermal imaging device that uses AI to monitor and detect a variety of specific patient movements to further prevent falls and pressure injuries
  • Sonrava Health, a national family of health and wellness companies, completed its acquisition of Mid-Atlantic Dental Partners, a national dental support organization 
  • R1, a provider of technology-driven solutions that transform the patient experience and financial performance of healthcare providers, completed its acquisition of Cloudmed, a provider of revenue integrity and recovery services for healthcare providers
  • MedLife, a provider of private medical services market in Romania, acquired Medicris Oradea Group, the largest center of occupational health and related services in Bihor County
  • Health Services firm Optum UK, a subsidiary of UnitedHeath Group, acquired EMIS, a provider of emerging markets research, data and news
  • Medix Biochemica, a supplier of critical raw materials to the in vitro diagnostics industry, acquired Bioresource Technology, a supplier of bulk processed human plasma and serum base matrices
  • WELL Health Technologies Corp, a digital health company focused on positively impacting health outcomes by leveraging technology to empower healthcare practitioners and their patients globally, entered into an asset purchase agreement to acquire the assets of INLIV, a healthcare provider specializing in consumer preventative health, corporate and executive health, primary care, cosmetics, fitness, and integrated health services
  • Switch Health, a provider of home next generation diagnostics and patient-focused digital solutions, acquired Bio-Test Laboratory, a provider of diagnostic laboratory and radiology services, with locations across Ontario

Funding Roundup

  • Clinical trial workflow platform Florence Healthcare raised $27 million
  • Asimily, a provider of cybersecurity for healthcare devices, raised an undisclosed amount of funding
  • MicroTransponder, a medical device company committed to developing research-based neuroscience solutions, raised $53 million
  • Rivet, a healthcare billing platform, raised $20.5 million 
  • MyOme, a clinical whole genome platform analysis company, raised $23 million
  • Kins, a digital-first, hybrid care physical therapy practice, raised $4 million
  • Medallion, a provider management platform, raised $35 million
  • Idoven, a health tech company advancing early detection and precision medicine of cardiovascular disease, raised $19.8 million
  • Cinematic Health Education, a company that prepares allied health professionals for rewarding health care careers, raised $4.1 million
  • Spry, an end-to-end patient and practice management SaaS platform for physical therapists, raised an undisclosed amount of funding
  • Kranus Health, a digital treatment for erectile dysfunction, raised more than €6 million
  • Aidaly, a service that provides compensation and financial services to family caregivers, raised $8.5 million
  • Gemelli, a company focused on improving health by providing precision diagnostics for gastrointestinal diseases, raised $19 million
  • Psyomics, an online mental health assessment platform, raised £2.4 million
  • AiVF, developer of an AI-based IVF software platform, raised $25 million
  • Vamstar, an AI-enabled global sourcing and procurement platform for medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, raised $9.5 million
  • Therorna, a biotech company specialized in the development of circular RNA technology-based new vaccines and therapies, raised $42 million
  • LynxCare, a clinical data platform, raised €20 million
  • Nibble Health, a B2B healthcare payments company, raised $8.5 million
  • ABOzymes Biomedical, a developer of blood-bag additives intended to make blood group irrelevant for transfusion or organ transplant, raised an undisclosed amount of funding
  • Axomove, a startup which offering solutions to care and prevent physical health conditions, raised €1.6 million
  • Sonrai Analytics, which automates data processes, harnesses AI, and speeds up new drug and healthcare developments, raised £2.175 million
  • HomeFirst Home Healthcare, a home health agency, raised an undisclosed amount of funding

(Image source: picpedia.org)

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