Digital health news, funding roundup in the prior week; August 15, 2022

Amazon Care partnered with Ginger; CDC relaxed COVID guidelines; BD partnered with Labcorp

Top Health News

• Digital health solutions company imaware announced a collaboration with Elo, a smart nutrition company turning food from the leading cause of disease to medicine by harnessing the power of at-home testing, AI, and nutritional coaching. As a part of the collaboration, imaware’s at-home diagnostics tests will provide Elo patients with deep clinical insights into specific biomarkers and health data, which are then leveraged to create a personalized supplement regimen with specific nutrients hand-selected for each patient’s health outcomes. Through this partnership, imaware has created an all-in-one digital platform that supports Elo through order fulfillment, operations, and logistics for blood tests that powers its personalized supplements.
• UnitedHealthcare rebranded its Bind health plans as Surest, which is offered to employers nationwide with self-funded health plans. Surest plans are also offered to UnitedHealthcare fully insured customers with 51 or more employees in 11 states, with intent to add up to five additional states by the end of 2022. Over 150 employers are using a Surest plan today, including a growing number that are adding Surest as an option for the 2023 enrollment season this fall.
• Billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest launched a $250 million venture capital fund for healthcare investments. The fund, called Tenmile, will be backed by Tattarang, the private investment group co-owned by Forrest and his wife Nicola. It will be one of the few Australian investment vehicles purely focused on backing health technology companies. The fund’s maiden investments are focused on relatively new therapeutic areas, including personalised cancer treatments and the use of psychedelics and medicinal cannabinoids. The first Australian companies to join the portfolio are Emyria, which is working on a psychedelic-assisted treatment for post-traumatic stress, and Carina Biotech, developing ‘CAR-T’ therapies that harness the human immune system to help fight cancer. The portfolio will also include a stake in the US health tech investor Rock Health.
• The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria announced The Africa Frontline First Catalytic Fund, a new catalytic fund to support community health workers across up to 10 African countries. It will provide financing to accelerate and sustain the scale up of frontline community health workers, the backbone of community health services. The first investments to the Africa Frontline First Catalytic Fund came from the Johnson & Johnson Foundation and the Skoll Foundation totaling $25 million. The Global Fund intends to match these and other investments to bolster support to and domestic financing for community health workers.
• The National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals announced approximately $15.8 million in planned project activities through the Institute's Project Call 5.2 for 14 new projects in technology and workforce development that will help to address key opportunities for innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry. These projects were selected to best align with key areas of focus identified by NIIMBL and which best align to address industry needs.
• Amazon’s virtual healthcare program, Amazon Care, partnered with Ginger, a digital mental health platform that gives people 24/7 access to mental health coaches and therapists. Primary care providers on the platform can respond to some low-grade issues, like mild anxiety. For more serious concerns, patients can be referred to providers outside of Amazon Care. Ginger will be available as an optional add-on for companies that use Amazon Care.
• Pear Therapeutics, a company that develops software-based medicines called prescription digital therapeutics, and SelectHealth, a not-for-profit health plan and wholly owned subsidiary of Intermountain Healthcare, announced that reSET-O, a PDT to treat opioid use disorder, has been added as a covered benefit for SelectHealth’s members. SelectHealth serves more than one million members across Utah, Idaho, and Nevada.
• UNC Health, a not-for-profit integrated health care system owned by the state of North Carolina, announced that it is releasing new features within its mobile platform through partnerships with Gozio Health and WELL Health. UNC Health is integrating Gozio-powered wayfinding with the WELL Health patient communications platform to create a more seamless, integrated digital experience for patients. 
• The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs entered into a multi-establishment conciliation agreement with healthcare and information technology company Cerner to resolve preliminary findings of a federal compliance evaluation that alleged the company discriminated in hiring Black and Asian applicants between 2015 to 2019. Cerner entered early resolution to resolve the allegations voluntarily, and agreed to pay $1.86 million in back pay and interest to 1,870 applicants who sought employment as medical billing account/patient account specialists, system engineers, software interns and technical solution analysts.
• Bain & Company, a global management consultancy, and Trinity Life Sciences, a provider of life sciences commercialization solutions, announced a strategic partnership to bring together Bain’s global experience across the life sciences value chain with Trinity’s technical expertise in biopharma and medtech. The partnership includes Bain & Company taking a minority investment in Trinity. 
• HCA Healthcare, an operator of health care facilities, and Johnson & Johnson announced a partnership in which they collaborate on a scalable program to improve health outcomes through early-stage lung cancer detection for the Black community. In addition, HCA Healthcare, through its HCA Healthcare Research Institute, and Johnson & Johnson will collaborate on cardiovascular health initiatives including a retrospective analysis of patients who suffer from heart arrhythmia, as well as research to understand the role digital health technology plays in impacting clinical outcomes for patients with Coronary Artery Disease and Peripheral Artery Disease diseases.
• EHE Health, a preventive care company, and Cedar Gate Technologies, a value-based care software and technology services company, announced a strategic partnership to offer EHE's US-based clients value-based care analytics to help them better understand and respond to their workforce's overall health status. Through Cedar Gate's solution, EHE Health will be able to support their clients to make more effective decisions when it comes to their employees' health care.
• Ellipsis Health, a provider of AI-generated voice biomarker technology, and Ceras Health, digital health solutions provider, announced a partnership that will integrate Ellipsis Health's technology that uses the human voice as a biomarker for mental health and wellbeing into Ceras' clinical monitoring platform. This integration will combine Ellipsis Health's AI and deep learning technology with Ceras Health's clinical monitoring and health data analytics platform, enabling real-time severity scores for anxiety and depression to improve care and triage patients in need.
• Scanslated, a radiologist-led healthcare technology company, partnered with Duke Health to deliver its patient-centered, interactive radiology reporting service to patients at Duke's three hospitals and 14 outpatient imaging locations servicing nearly two million patients per year.
• The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines for COVID-19, saying the nation should move away from restrictive measures such as quarantines and social distancing and focus on reducing severe disease. In new guidelines, the agency no longer recommends staying at least 6 feet away from other people to reduce the risk of exposure, a shift from guidance that had been in place since the early days of the pandemic. The shift is a sign of how much has changed since the beginning of the pandemic more than two years ago. Nearly the entire US population has at least some immunity through vaccination, previous infection or, in some cases, both.
• Six digital health start-ups from five countries were announced as the first cohort of the Edison Accelerator in Canada, a program designed by GE Healthcare and delivered in collaboration with Nex Cubed to accelerate, validate, and scale innovative solutions that address important challenges in the healthcare sector. They are: 16 Bit a startup that developed a device for prescreening low bone mineral density; Bot Image, a medical device for aiding physicians in prostate cancer diagnostics; CardioWise, an AI cardiac image analysis company; contextflow, developer oftools to enable radiologists to complete their daily workload faster; corelinesoft, an AI-based medical image processing solution; and Us2.ai, which automates the fight against heart disease through AI.
• Owens & Minor, a healthcare solutions company, and Allina Health, a not-for-profit healthcare system dedicated to enhancing the health of individuals, families and communities throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin, announced a renewed partnership and a new strategic collaboration to create a unique integrated service model for supply chain resiliency. The integrated service model is an evolution of the 20-year partnership between Allina Health and Owens & Minor. At the heart of the model is an integrated service center that will serve as the hub and central command for supply chain operations, combining communications, fulfillment, inventory management and distribution into an end-to-end solution built specifically for the needs of Allina Health’s hospital and clinical care network, including its 6,000 associated and employed physicians.
• BD, a global medical technology company, announced a collaboration agreement with Labcorp, creating a framework to develop, manufacture, market and commercialize flow cytometry-based companion diagnostics intended to match patients with treatments for cancer and other diseases. The agreement creates a framework for BD and Labcorp Drug Development to collaborate on flow cytometry-based CDx opportunities with pharmaceutical partners.
• The Cancer Support Community and Carevive, an oncology-focused health technology company, partnered to provide a and social work team-based care delivery model to health systems across the U.S. They will monitor and manage the physical and psychosocial distress of patients and caregivers impacted by a cancer diagnosis in collaboration with cancer care teams. Built on the proven success of both CSC’s CancerSupportSource distress screening tool and Carevive’s PROmpt cancer care management program, this partnership offers an effective proactive approach to cancer care navigation.
• Noridian Healthcare Solutions, a developer of solutions for federal, state and commercial health care programs, announced it will work with software and solutions company HHS Technology Group to modernize solutions for states’ Medicaid programs. This collaboration will combine Noridian’s administrative services with HTG’s technology software to develop transformative solutions for provider management and third-party liability services. These solutions will help lower costs and increase efficiencies for private enterprise and government health care companies.
• Paige, a provider of clinical AI applications for pathology, partnered with Sonora Quest Laboratories, a clinical diagnostics company, to implement a fully digital pathology workflow at its laboratories. The goal of the digital transformation project is to improve existing diagnostic workflows and accelerate precision diagnoses for patients across Arizona. Under the partnership, Paige will provide Sonora Quest with the complete suite of Paige’s AI-enabled digital pathology solutions, including the FullFocus viewer, Paige Prostate Detect and Paige Breast. Paige Prostate Detect is the first AI-based pathology product to receive de novo marketing authorization from the FDA, allowing in vitro diagnostic use via Paige’s FDA-cleared FullFocus digital pathology viewer.
• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for the JYNNEOS vaccine to allow healthcare providers to use the vaccine by intradermal injection for individuals 18 years of age and older who are determined to be at high risk for monkeypox infection. This will increase the total number of doses available for use by up to five-fold. The EUA also allows for use of the vaccine in individuals younger than 18 years of age determined to be at high risk of monkeypox infection; in these individuals JYNNEOS is administered by subcutaneous injection.

M&A

• Planet DDS, a provider of cloud-based dental software, acquired QSIDental, a provider of dental practice management software, from NextGen Healthcare
• Availity, a real-time health information network, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Diameter Health, a clinical data quality and interoperability company
• UPS announced plans to acquire Bomi Group, a multinational healthcare logistics provider
• Humana acquired substantially all of the assets of Inclusa, a Managed Care Organization that provides long-term care services and supports
• Nava Benefits, a healthcare benefits brokerage, acquired i2, a healthcare benefits consulting company
• Spectrum Science, an integrated marketing, communications and media agency hyper-focused on health and science, acquired strategic communications consultancy Aurora Healthcare Communications and other group agencies under This is Avalon Group
• ReviveHealth, a health care subscription solution, acquired iSelectMD, a digital health technology and virtual urgent care services company
• SpendMend, a provider of solutions to optimize the cost-cycle for the healthcare industry today, completed its acquisition of VIE Healthcare Consulting, a provider of financial and operational consulting providers of patient care
• Azenta, a provider of life sciences solutions, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire B Medical Systems S.á r.l and its subsidiaries, a provider of temperature-controlled storage and transportation solutions that enables the delivery of life-saving treatments
• Cosentus Business Services, a global business services company, acquired SyMed Corporation, a health care billing software company 
• Emergent Health, which develops and sells products in the regenerative health space, acquired Evolutionary Biologics, a biologics company that brings regenerative products to the medical community

Funding Roundup

• Nanopath raised $10M to be a diagnostic platform for women
• Medical conversation startup Abridge raised $12.5 million
• Materna Medical, a company devoted to improving women's pelvic health through technology, raised $20 million
• Biofourmis, a digital therapeutics platform that collects and analyses data, which is then used to predict disease before it happens, raised $20 million
• Vector BioPharma AG, a biopharmaceutical company developing a precision gene delivery platform that is devoid of viral genes, raised $30 million
• Diri Care, a digital clinic for skin, hair, and sexual health concerns, raised $4.3 million 
• Qventus, a provider of artificial intelligence powered software for care operations automation, raised $3 million
• Maximus, a consumer telemedicine company that provides at-home lab testing and doctor-prescribed protocols to optimize men’s health and hormone function, raised $15 million
• Renibus Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech firm focused on cardio-renal diseases, raised $14.9 million
• Patchwork Health, a healthcare workforce platform built by NHS doctors, raised £20 million
• AIRS Medical, a startup that enables digitalization of diagnostic tests based on AI and robotics technology, raised $20 million
• Insilico Medicine, a clinical-stage end-to-end artificial intelligence driven drug discovery company, raised $35 million
• Genvax Technologies, a startup animal vaccine company, raised $6.5 million
• Interaxon, a consumer neurotechnology company, raised $9.5 million
• FundamentalVR, a VR surgical training platform, raised $20 million
• Levita Magnetics, a robotic surgery platform, raised $26 million
• EirSystems, a provider of software for prescribing and distributing prescriptions safely and efficiently, raised an undisclosed amount of funding 

(Image source: moovaz.com)