Digital health news, funding round up in the prior week; February 27, 2023

Hemab Therapeutics raised $135M; Aledade bought Curia; Bicycle Health partnered with Wellpath

Top Health News

• SimpliFed, which provides parents with virtual breastfeeding and baby feeding support, announced a newly signed mutual preferred provider agreement with breast pump provider Byram Healthcare. After families purchase a breast pump, they will get notified about SimpliFed services covered by many health plans to help them get sized and properly use a breast pump. SimpliFed’s lactation and baby feeding support services are available on many commercial, Medicaid, and TRICARE plans across the United States. Also families can go directly to Byram's website to sign-up to receive SimpliFed's services. Similarly, SimpliFed will have a link on their website to access insurance-covered breast pumps from Byram.
• Healthcare interoperability company Redox announced a partnership with Google Cloud, which it says will improve the flow and unification of data across health care systems. As a part of the partnership, Redox will replicate its platform on Google Cloud, offering Google Cloud customers, including health plans, providers, life science, medical device companies, and digital health organizations, the ability to incorporate standards like HL7v2, C-CDA, X12, and DICOM, into FHIR. The idea is to will make it faster and easier for those organizations to use Google Cloud's products, such as Healthcare API and Healthcare Data Engine.
• Virtual care services provider KeyCare announced a partnership with Memorial Healthcare System. Through this partnership, Memorial patients can conduct appointments with Virtualist healthcare providers via MemorialDOCNow, Memorial’s virtual care platform, which will be powered by KeyCare, in Memorial’s MyChart portal. Virtualists have access to each patient’s Memorial data as they provide care and complete encounter details on KeyCare’s Epic platform and seamlessly share results with members of a patient’s Memorial care team. Memorial patients can now access the high-quality virtual care solution via Memorial's digital front door, through the health system’s MemorialDOCNow service and MyChart patient portal. In addition to being its first partner in the Sunshine State, Memorial Healthcare System is also the first to go live with KeyCare’s pediatric urgent care services, though both adult and pediatric patients will have access to MemorialDOCNow.
• Homeward, a company looking to increase access to rural healthcare by offering a hybrid model that combines both virtual and in-person care, announced a value-based collaboration with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. Through this collaboration, Homeward will be able to offer its services to Blue Cross Medicare Advantage members who live in 24 Minnesota counties outside of the Twin Cities metropolitan area starting in the spring of this year; this is important because approximately 40% of all Blue Cross members reside outside of the Twin Cities. The 24 counties where residents will now have access to Homeward's services include Becker, Benton, Big Stone, Cass, Clay, Chippewa, Crow Wing, Douglas, Grant, Hubbard, Kandiyohi, Lac Qui Parle, Lincoln, Lyon, Morrison, Otter Tail, Pope, Redwood, Renville, Stearns, Swift, Todd, Wadena, and Wilkin. Homeward and Blue Cross say they plan to continue expand into additional counties in Minnesota in the future.
• Diathrive Health, a diabetes and chronic disease management solution, and Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, PBC announced a new collaboration, focused on improving healthcare access, lowering costs, and improving outcomes for people living with diabetes and other chronic diseases. Cost Plus Drugs and Diathrive Health are both industry disruptors. The relationship will give consumers lower cost medications and diabetes testing supplies and more personalized, higher quality care so that they can achieve better health outcomes.
• Dawn Health, a company specializing in the development of software as medical device and digital therapeutics, announced a strategic partnership with Novartis, a medicine company, to support the development of a platform that enables the effective remote monitoring and management of patients to realize a hybrid future for chronic care and transform the experience for all stakeholders. Novartis has selected Dawn Health as their partner and the legal manufacturer of the envisioned platform in a patient-first approach that empowers patients and their care teams to make better and faster treatment decisions aimed at improving outcomes and managing chronic diseases more proactively and efficiently. By combining a patient mobile application focused on high engagement and exceptional UX with innovative elements like symptom tracking, novel (digital) biomarkers, clinical decision support services, virtual clinic capabilities and other relevant services as they become available, the platform will be tailored very specifically to the needs and demands of each separate disease in scope.
• Life insurer AIA Singapore and telehealth company WhiteCoat partnered to offer digital corporate mental health solutions. The partners are expanding their Think Well programme to provide text, video, and in-person mental health coaching and support to AIA's corporate employee clients. Embedded in AIA's corporate outpatient plans, the programme will also offer "a dynamic and personalised" content library of curated mental wellness resources such as articles and videos. Through the WhiteCoat mobile app, users will first have to complete a mental health self-assessment and make a same-day appointment to chat in real-time with a psychologist or counsellor, who can also recommend them follow-up care on a case-by-case basis.
• The National Committee for Quality Assurance selected Healthmap Solutions for inclusion in its “Population Health Roadmap for Chronic Kidney Disease.” Healthmap was recognized for its innovative, holistic approach to kidney health management, which involves assessing patients’ social determinants of health, closing care gaps, and using proprietary algorithms to risk-stratify patients and recommend appropriate interventions. The Roadmap is part of NCQA’s Kidney Health Toolkit. The Toolkit provides resources that enable patients, providers, health plans, and health systems to understand and promote best practices in kidney health and CKD care, especially among people with risk factors such as diabetes.
• Bicycle Health, a telehealth provider of integrated medical and behavioral health treatment for opioid use disorder, announced it is teaming up with Wellpath, a provider of localized, compassionate care to vulnerable patients in challenging clinical environments, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The collaboration will enable patients to access Bicycle Health’s evidence-based, life-saving clinical care model delivering virtual Medication for Opioid Use Disorder services to individuals living in the FBOP’s Residential Reentry Centers.
• ONWARD Medical N.V., a medical technology company creating therapies to restore movement, independence, and health in people with spinal cord injury, announced it has been granted Breakthrough Device Designation status from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the use of its ARC-EX platform for bladder control, alleviation of spasticity, and blood pressure regulation in people with SCI. ONWARD has now been awarded a total of eight Breakthrough Device Designations, highlighting the company’s innovative approach to developing therapies for people with SCI.
• RapidAI, a provider of neurovascular and vascular AI-enhanced clinical decision support and patient workflow, announced it has received FDA 510(k) clearance for Rapid RV/LV, the newest addition to the Rapid PE solution. The tool empowers physicians to quickly assess the ratio between the right ventricle and the left ventricle, a key indicator of pulmonary embolism severity. Automating this process will enable care teams to more quickly prioritize patients and accelerate decision making.
• Ambience Healthcare, an AI company developing technology to supercharge healthcare providers, announced the public launch of its fully automated AI medical scribe, Ambience AutoScribe. Already in use by provider organizations across North America, AutoScribe is revolutionizing the way healthcare providers document patient visits. AutoScribe comprehensively captures the nuances of each patient story, without the need for a virtual or in-person human scribe. AutoScribe embeds deeply into the EMR workflow and operates in real-time, which means that the AI-generated notes are immediately available to review, edit, and sign off without breaking provider workflow. AutoScribe can also be customized to each provider’s individual preferences, ensuring that the notes are written in the provider’s own voice and style.
• Nomi Health, a direct healthcare company, announced the creation of the Nomi Health Charitable Foundation to advance the company’s efforts to expand access to high-quality affordable healthcare across the United States. The Foundation will take a comprehensive approach to break the healthcare inequity cycle, including removing barriers to care and addressing health disparities disproportionately impacting underserved communities. Nomi Health has donated $11 million since its founding in 2019 and is seeding the creation of the charitable foundation with an additional $5 million. The foundation will be continuously funded.
• ConcertAI TeraRecon announced a partnership with Riverain Technologies to integrate AI-based chest solutions into Eureka Clinical AI platform. ConcertAI's TeraRecon Eureka Clinical AI SaaS platform brings artificial intelligence and Deep Learning technologies to automate thoracic image interpretation for improved accuracy and accelerated interpretation. This provides a comprehensive AI solution for multi-specialty care teams that improves patient care.
• Regional Health Network contracted Taylor Reach to establish a centralized patient scheduling center. Taylor Reach will be working with the key stakeholders in the group, which includes several hospitals and specialized clinics across the urban region. Once factors like appointment volume, scheduling, cancelations and rescheduling are taken into account, a detailed plan can be developed regarding the size of center needed, the number of staff required to support the center and the technology requirements that will underpin the operation.
• Ordaōs, a biotechnology company designing novel mini-proteins to help drug hunters deliver life-saving treatments, announced a collaboration with FatiAbGen, a South Korea-based biopharma company developing monoclonal antibody-based therapies. As a part of their partnership, Ordaōs will use their in silico Design Engine to optimize antibodies for several oncology conditions including pancreatic and ovarian cancer, of which there is a high unmet need. As part of this collaboration, Ordaōs will employ their proprietary in silico Design Engine to optimize the overall safety and efficacy of FatiAbGen's existing monoclonnal anitbodies. The Ordaōs Design Engine, which leverages the power of multitask, metalearning AI, can rapidly enhance FatiAbGen's existing antibodies indicated for a number of oncology conditions. FatiAbGen will then be responsible for developing these antibodies in pre-clinical study.
• Toronto Public Health, Unity Health Toronto and the University Health Network announced new partnerships to expand frontline health care services in responding to the escalating drug poisoning crisis in Toronto. This will be the first time that acute care hospitals in Ontario and Public Health have worked together to offer supervised consumption services, adding a new way of providing essential harm reduction programming and care in Toronto. The new partnerships will see TPH’s long-standing harm reduction program, The Works, collaborate with St. Michael’s Hospital (part of Unity Health Toronto), and with Toronto Western Hospital (part of UHN). The specific community locations for the new sites will be determined over the next 12 to 24 months.
• Koios Medical, a medical imaging and artificial intelligence software company, announced a new distribution partnership with RMS Medical Devices for the BENELUX region of Europe. This collaboration will bring Koios Medical's innovative DS Ai software to hospitals, clinics, and medical facilities throughout the region. This distribution partnership is a significant step for Koios Medical as the company further expands its reach deeper into the European market. With the support of RMS Medical Devices, Koios DS Ai software is poised to make a significant impact on healthcare in BENELUX and beyond.
• TREAT-NMD Services, the business arm of TREAT-NMD Alliance, a charity focused on neuromuscular disorders, and Aetion, a provider of real-world evidence technology and analytics, announced a three-year global partnership that will see the organizations working on a number of projects to expedite the development of treatment solutions for people with rare neuromuscular diseases - e.g., spinal muscular atrophy, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Charcot, and Becker muscular dystrophy. TREAT-NMD and Aetion strive to drive impact by speeding the delivery of rapid and robust RWE for the highly challenging area of rare neuromuscular disease. This collaboration, in turn, will support solutions for biopharmaceutical researchers by enabling easier access to critical rare disease data sources and scientifically-validated study design guided by first-in-class RWE methodologies.
• Akums Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited announced that it has partnered with Lyrus Life Sciences for a number of patented technologies and formulations. Lyrus is a research and technology-driven global specialty pharmaceutical company committed to developing differentiated and innovative products. The products and technologies are carefully selected to address the unmet need in the areas of pain, obesity, diabetes, psoriasis, seasonal flu, respiratory insufficiency, immunity, and women’s health with a special focus on the geriatric and pediatric population.
• To help provide nonclinical strategies for people living with Parkinson's, Havas Health Plus, part of health and wellness network Havas Health & You, and the American Parkinson Disease Association partnered to launch ParkinSex, a guide to intimacy meant to help people with Parkinson's and their partners deepen their connections and improve sexual wellness, which has been linked to overall health and well-being. As part of the partnership, HH&Y sponsored the pilot distribution of kits to members of the Parkinson's community to raise awareness about the benefits sexual intimacy can have for people living with the disease, which sold out in only 24 hours. Each kit includes an educational guide designed to help strengthen relationships between partners navigating Parkinson's disease and deepen intimacy with items meant to augment the book's benefits – including massage stones, candles, and coupons for adaptive clothing.
• WellSky, a health and community care technology company, announced a new partnership with Silverado, a hospice, palliative care, and memory care organization, to improve the quality of care delivered to patients and increase clinical staff efficiency with WellSky Hospice & Palliative software and analytics tools. By implementing WellSky technology, which facilitates easier, faster, and more flexible documentation, Silverado clinicians will achieve a better work-life balance – an important aspect of the organization’s culture. Silverado staff will use WellSky’s hospice-specific and palliative-specific revenue cycle capabilities to seamlessly bill for both fee-for-service and value-based care; WellSky CareInsights™ for Hospice, a predictive analytics solution, to prioritize skilled care and family support at the most sensitive time with seven-day mortality risk predictions; and WellSky’s care transition solutions to streamline referral management.
• BehavioralHealthJobs.com and Valeo Resources announced that the companies have entered into a strategic partnership that will enable Behavioral Health professionals to advance their careers while helping employers attract the best employees for the Behavioral Health Industry, which includes addiction, mental health, eating disorders, and autism treatment. The agreement brings together two of Behavioral Health's leading sources for open jobs and career information specifically dedicated to this unique industry.
• Cardiovascular surgeons at Orlando Health Heart and Vascular Institute partnered for heart surgery with robotic assisted technology. The robotic cardiac surgery program is currently the only program of its kind in Orlando, providing robotic-assisted surgery for structural and valve disease. With robotic-assisted surgery techniques cardiac surgeons use very small incisions to repair the heart, which means less pain, fewer complications, shorter recovery, and greater satisfaction for patients. Incision length varies but could be as small as 3/8 inch to 1 inch. Incision with traditional heart surgery, which requires an incision through the sternum to access the heart, can be as long as 7 to ten inches.
• Amgen, which focuses on areas of high unmet medical need, announced the African American Heart Study, in collaboration with the Association of Black Cardiologists and the Morehouse School of Medicine, which will measure the association between Lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a), and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in 5,000 African American individuals across the United States. ASCVD is defined as the buildup of cholesterol plaque in arteries and includes events such as heart attack and stroke.
• More than 400 independent physicians and 1,100 providers, across the country announced the launch of PELTO Health Partners (PELTO), a first of its kind option for practices to trailblaze new roads and produce better healthcare to the patients of the local practices. Three of the nation’s largest physician owned, independent groups – EmergeOrtho, OrthoIndy, and Proliance Surgeons – bring together their expertise to collectively devise a platform for optimizing clinical and business services, using their best-in-class knowledge to bring value back to their individual practices. PELTO is an independent movement by physicians to promote value-based care without capital from external sources.
• Synbio Tech Inc. and Cosmax NBT, a South Korean biotechnology company, officially signed an exclusive cooperation agreement to launch Lactobacillus plantarum TWK10 probiotic strain in South Korea, and announced that TWK10 has been approved as an Individual Health Functional Food certification by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety of South Korea. Under the agreement, COSMAX NBT will exclusively distribute TWK10® in muscle health category to meet the growing needs of the active nutrition and healthy aging markets.
• Glooko announced that they have entered into a partnering agreement with Sanofi to increase their support of people living with diabetes and healthcare professionals, by integrating SoloSmart with the Glooko platform. SoloSmart is a single piece add-on connected device intended for use with SoloStar and DoubleStar insulin injection pens which records the insulin dose, date and time of injection and allows for visualization of the data in the Glooko app, that patients can share with healthcare professionals for connected care in diabetes management. At this time, SoloSmart is not approved in the US. Through Glooko's global footprint of over 8,000 clinics, Sanofi aims to increase the accessibility of digital solutions to people with diabetes in each of the given countries where SoloSmart will be made available. The SoloSmart cap is currently undergoing integration with the Glooko platform and will gradually roll out across several countries starting later in 2023. The combined solution will be made available in English and local languages. As part of the global agreement, Glooko and Sanofi contemplate the option to further expand the launch of the combined technologies beyond the initial geographic scope.
• MORE Health, a global digital health company specializing in expert second medical opinions, announced a partnership with Meadows Behavioral Healthcare, the nation's trusted treatment company, to increase access to the top trauma, mental health, addiction, and recovery experts. With this unique partnership, MORE Health clients, benefit members, and patients worldwide can access expert medical opinions and virtual outpatient treatment programs from nationally and internationally recognized trauma, mental health, addiction, and recovery experts at Meadows Behavioral Healthcare. In addition, employees of Meadows Behavioral Health will also have access to the Expert Medical Opinion employee benefit when faced with a serious illness or diagnosis.
• Herzing University, an accredited, private non-profit institution, announced a new partnership with Guild, a provider of opportunity creation for America's workforce. Through this new partnership, employees at healthcare organizations including Bon Secours Mercy Health, Sentara Healthcare, and Trilogy Healthcare Services will now have employer-funded access to Herzing's career-focused healthcare programs.
• Pacific Dental Services, a dental support organization, partnered with High Point University in North Carolina to extend its instance of Epic, the most widely used comprehensive electronic health records system in the United States, for use in the college's Workman School of Dental Medicine and dental practices affiliated with the school through the HPU Oral Health Network. This partnership, the first of its kind for a dental support organization to partner with an academic institution, was made possible by Epic's Community Connect program, which allows larger health care systems already employing Epic to extend its use to others that would not otherwise be in a position to utilize the platform.
• Duo Health, a medical group for patients with chronic kidney disease and end stage kidney disease, announced a partnership with Gold Kidney Health Plan to deliver an enhanced model of care for patients in Arizona. Gold Kidney of Arizona, Inc., a subsidiary of Gold Kidney Health Plan, has launched several Medicare Advantage Chronic-Care Special Needs Plans available to Arizona residents with chronic conditions including diabetes, congestive heart failure, cardiovascular disease, and end stage kidney disease and are Medicare eligible. These plans create improved access to and relationships with the specialists’ patients need.
• The University of Arizona Global Campus and Dallas College signed an agreement to offer concurrent enrollment to the approximately 3,000 students with Dallas College Allied Health Programs. The goal of the agreement is to provide an opportunity for Dallas College students who are working on associate degrees to concurrently enroll with UAGC to work on upper division classes and conceivably graduate at both Dallas College and UAGC at the same time. Students currently enrolled in Dallas College Allied Health Programs will have the opportunity to concurrently enroll in popular UAGC programs, such as – Bachelor of Arts in Health Care Administration and Bachelor of Science in Health Information Management through the UAGC College of Arts and Sciences.
• Zhongchao, a platform-based internet technology company offering services to patients with oncology and other major diseases, announced the renewal of the partnership between Zhongchao Medical Technology, of which Zhongchao consolidates the operations and financial results through a series of contractual arrangements and Johnson & Johnson (China) Investment Limited ("J&J"). The renewed partnership is expected to further strengthen two parities' cooperation in the global advanced field of innovative medical and health.
• Hackensack Meridian Health and Neosoma, a medical technology company focused on helping clinicians advance the treatment of brain cancers through the use of artificial intelligence, announced a new strategic partnership to tackle some of the most difficult-to-treat tumors. The collaboration will include clinical data sharing, clinical research, and strategic investment from the health network to support the Massachusetts-based company’s innovative method of imaging, tracking and collecting data on numerous types of brain tumors including glioblastomas.
• All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology-Delhi started a collaboration to advance digital health. AIIMS and IIIT-Delhi had previously worked on some medical AI projects, including the development of predictive models for sepsis, gastrointestinal tuberculosis, and antimicrobial resistance. Their latest memorandum of understanding essentially builds on their prior collaborations to further work in the various aspects of digital health. In particular, they will focus on AI, ML, and computational genomics to promote research around clinical medicine, public health, and biomedicine. They also seek to contribute to the government's Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission by creating a universal health coverage framework to ensure access to quality and affordable healthcare services.

M&A

• Aledade, a company helping the system transition to a model that incentivizes the physician to give the patient quality care, acquired Curia, a provider of value-based care analytics
• Amazon closed its acquisition of primary care provider One Medical
• AGS Health, a provider for tech-enabled revenue cycle management solutions and strategic growth partner to healthcare providers, acquired the patient access outsourcing business unit of healthcare technology company Availity
• UnitedHealth Group closed it acquisition of home health provider LHC Group 
• Molbio Diagnostics, a molecular diagnostics manufacturer, acquired a 70% stake in Prognosys Medical Systems, a company that builds radiology and fluoroscopy solutions
• Ventra Health, a provider of revenue cycle management, practice management, and advisory services for hospital-based physician specialties, acquired Deras Global Services, a provider of RCM services for hospital-based physician specialties
• Physical aesthetics solutions brand makeO acquired Smileneo, a teledentistry platform for teeth straightening
• Starco Brands, inventor of consumer products with behavior-changing technologies, acquired Soylent Nutrition, a plant-based food technology company
• Olympus Corporation, a manufacturer of optics and reprography products, acquired Taewoong Medical Co., a manufacturer of medical devices such as gastrointestinal metallic stents
• GeBBS Healthcare Solutions, a provider of technology enabled Revenue Cycle Management and risk adjustment solutions for healthcare providers and payers, acquired CPa Medical Billing an East Haven, a provider of Revenue Cycle services to FQHCs and other multi-specialty physician groups
• 5th Century Partners, a private investment firm, acquired Perspecta, a provider of physician directories and data management solutions in workers' compensation, government and commercial healthcare
• Premier Inc acquired 100 Top Hospitals Program, which produces annual studies designed to shine a light on the nation’s highest performing hospitals and health systems
• Emergent Health Corp., a curator, developer, and marketer of products in the Regenerative Health Space, closed the acquisition of Nanosthetic Cosmetic Labs

Funding Roundup 

• Vytalize Health, a risk-bearing provider enablement platform, raised $100 million
• Quell, a fitness gaming developer and publisher, raised $10 million
• Hemab Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing prophylactic therapeutics for serious, underserved bleeding and thrombotic disorders, raised $135 million
• Viking Analytics, an AI-based machine health monitoring technology company, raised €3 million
• Transcend Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that develops medicines to treat neuropsychiatric diseases, raised $40 million

(Image source: forbes.com)