Digital health news, funding round up in the prior week; October 3, 2022

Grow Therapy raised $75M; CirrusMD partnered with NeuroFlow; Prime Medicine filed to go public

Top Health News

• The CDC loosened several pandemic infection control recommendations in healthcare delivery settings and specified guidance relevant to certain types of long-term care settings. The latest changes discard healthcare workers’ vaccination status when determining whether to screen, quarantine or use “source control” measures such as face masks and respirators. In settings where healthcare workers could encounter a patient, the agency no longer recommends source control for those in communities without high levels of COVID-19 spread. The CDC currently considers nearly three-quarters of the country’s counties to be high-transmission communities, meaning masking would still be recommended for most healthcare settings. Additionally, those who have a suspected or confirmed respiratory infection, had close contact with someone with COVID-19 in the last 10 days, are in a facility experiencing a COVID-19 outbreak or have other circumstances normally requiring source control are still recommended to use it.
• A study showed consumers rated the effectiveness of mental health apps lower than the clinicians and academics who recommend them, yet many patients still say the apps have helped improve their mental health. The study recruited individuals who had experienced mental health problems and asked them to download and use three apps for three days. Those users were asked to complete a survey consisting of open-ended questions, which were then compared with app ratings given by professionals and star ratings from app stores. While professionals gave the apps an overall star rating of 4.56, participants rated them almost an entire star lower, at 3.58. Not only that, but while physicians gave the apps a recommendation rating of 4.39, participants have them a rating of 3.44, again nearly an entire star lower.
• Gene editing company Prime Medicine filed preliminary IPO paperwork with securities regulators late Friday. No financial terms have been set yet for the stock offering, which IPO research firm Renaissance Capital estimates could reach up to $200 million. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Prime has applied for a listing on the Nasdaq exchange under the stock symbol “PRME.” In the IPO filing, Prime acknowledges the progress made in genetic medicines. But the biotech also says that these technologies lack versatility to precisely and efficiently correct many of the mutations or DNA alterations driving disease. Prime calls its technology prime editing. The company claims this approach can address a wide range of mutations, including all types of point mutations, which are errors in a single base.
• Hyundai Motor America announced the expansion of its partnership with Children's Hospital Los Angeles to further its commitment to child passenger and pedestrian safety programs. The latest donation from Hyundai Hope will assist with consumer educational events, including an upcoming car seat safety check event on October 1 and a L.A. Street Smarts kids walk event on October 5, an interactive experience developed at CHLA for children to learn pedestrian safety.
• Prosoma Digital Therapeutics, a healthcare company for oncology patients, partnered with EVERSANA, a provider of commercial services to the global life sciences industry, to support the expected launch and commercialisation for Prosoma's digital therapy to support the mental health of cancer patients. The digital therapy, Living Well, is the company's proprietary application designed to improve the quality of life and reduce stress, anxiety, and depression symptoms related to cancer diagnosis and treatment. EVERSANA's experts in launching and commercialising digital therapeutic solutions will help Prosoma navigate regulatory pathways and plan for commercialisation.
• Immunify.Life, a blockchain-based healthcare ecosystem, in partnership with Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, a science, technology, and innovation university in Kenya, completed groundwork for a large-scale HIV/AIDS treatment outcomes study that is now formally launched. As part of the study, the Immunify.Life data capture and processing platform will be used to help empower patients, communities, and entire countries using token rewards that can improve medical regimen adherence rates in previously lapsed HIV/AIDS patients. The HIV/AIDS treatment outcomes study is an elegant application of the Immunify.Life technology, and the results from the study will contribute to the future Strategic Direction on HIV treatment in Kenya.
• FORCE3 Pro Gear, a protective sports gear company, launched a new partnership with non-profit breast cancer organization Susan G. Komen, while unveiling its facility expansion. The two initiatives helped solidify the company’s leadership role in the industry and commitment to safeguarding good health. The expansion includes a larger corporate office, more warehouse space, expanded product development and research and development lab facilities and a new retail storefront.
• Cloud DX, a remote monitoring company, announced a new partnership with CBI Health, a community home care provider, to offer a comprehensive home care service to Canadians. This partnership enables patients to go home sooner and more safely after surgery and other complex health presentations, helping alleviate occupancy pressure on Canadian hospitals. The partners' first contract together is the Critical Illness benefit with insurer Equitable Life of Canada, which now offers Cloud DX Remote Monitoring free of charge to all approved CI claimants.
• Poietis, a healthtech bioprinting company, announced a partnership with CREATIO, the Production and Validation Center for Advanced Therapies for the manufacture of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Product of the University of Barcelona to install its NGB-C bioprinting platform in their cGMP facilities. Bioprinting consists on the making of human artificial tissues through the combination of bio-materials and cells. This technology, which is part of the tissue engineering has brought a revolution in the pharmaceutical sector, with the creation of three-dimensional cellular models, and in the biomedical sector, focused on the generation of tissues and organs, for direct clinical applications.
• SoLVBL, a cybersecurity company that provides immutable data authentication using advanced cryptography, entered into a technology integration Pilot Agreement to integrate its Q by SoLVBL cybersecurity technology throughout the Healthy Habit Limited, a distributor of CBD infused health and wellness products.
• Northwell Health, New York's largest healthcare provider, is implementing the CliniShift healthcare staffing and schedule management platform. CliniShift worked with Northwell Health IT employees to help install the system. The CliniShift platform delivers an 84 percent uptake in internal shift requests, and 80 percent of shifts were accepted under 30 minutes, according to the Sept. 26 Northwell news release provided to Becker's. CliniShift is a Dublin, Ireland-based company. The partnership between CliniShift and Northwell arose through a partnership between Northwell and Enterprise Ireland, the Irish government's innovation agency.
• MercyOne, a health system serving patients in Iowa, signed an agreement to participate in a 2023 accountable care organization with Signify Health, a health care platform that leverages advanced analytics, technology and nationwide health care networks to create and power value-based payment programs. The 2023 Signify-enabled accountable care organization will support MercyOne’s Population Health Services Organization rural providers in their transition to risk-based payment arrangements and better
  manage total cost of care for Iowa Medicare patients. MercyOne PHSO, which currently operates as a clinically-integrated network, will use Signify Health’s unique population health methodologies, in-home services, data and technology infrastructure to advance in value-based care in rural Iowa. MercyOne will work with independent providers in a Signify-supported collaborative ACO to minimize the statistical variance of savings and losses smaller ACOs may experience and protect against risk.
• Following Google’s acquisition of Fitbit and its rebranding of the health tech company as ‘Fitbit by Google,’ the search giant is integrating its services with Fitbit’s. A Google account will be required for “some uses” of Fitbit devices and features from 2023, with plans to have all existing Fitbit accounts migrated to Google accounts by 2025. An updated support page says that creating a new Fitbit account and activating new Fitbit devices and features will require a Google account from 2023. Existing Fitbit account holders will be able to move over to a Google account or remain with their existing Fitbit login until “at least early 2025,” at which point support for Fitbit accounts will be terminated.
• Fitbit Health Solutions and Google Cloud launched a new service to help healthcare and life science organizations utilize data from wearables called Device Connect for Fitbit. It allows patients to make their Fitbit data available to providers, giving these patients control over who they share their information with and for what purpose. The tool also includes a "data connector," so data can be integrated with Google Cloud's BigQuery analytics engine or mapped to emerging data standards. The connector can also make use of the Cloud Healthcare API, making Fitbit information interoperable with clinical data. The new service will also include an analytics dashboard and can use artificial intelligence and machine learning. Fitbit and Google Cloud said the tools could be used to monitor patients before and after surgery, care for chronic conditions, manage population health, address health disparities and collect data for clinical studies.
• BrightInsight, a platform for digitizing the medtech and pharma spaces, announced three new partners for its BrightInsight Ecosystem, a network of healthcare and technology companies: mental health chatbot Woebot; digital prescribing platform Xealth; and Claritas Rx, a data integration and analytics company for pharmaceutical manufacturers. They join pre-existing partners bioMérieux, Google Cloud, Lyniate, Slalom, Shapiro + Raj, Schlesinger Group, Roche, Rare Patient Voice, Novo Nordisk, New Leaf Ventures, Lyniate, Insight Partners, HealthXL, Guidea, GlobalLogic, General Catalyst, FPT Software, Flex, Eclipse, CSL Behring, and Cooley, bringing the total number of partners to over 20 in all.
• BrightInsight also revealed that it has joined General Catalyst’s Health Assurance network, which is made up of healthcare technology companies, advisors and experts, investors, and strategically-partnered health systems across the country. Through strategic partnerships with healthcare systems, the General Catalyst Health Assurance network covers approximately 10% of the U.S. population for delivery of care. As part of the Assurance network, BrightInsight will aid General Catalyst by helping systems pilot regulated digital solutions, standardize data integrations and, ultimately, accelerate digital health scale and adoption.
• A report from Vantage Market Research, the global behavioral mental health software market is projected to be valued at $5.2 billion by 2028, more than doubling its value of $2.5 billion in 2021. That is a compound annual growth rate of 11.1% between 2022 and 2028. In addition, the report also showed that behavioral health concerns will account for $2 trillion in healthcare spending by 2025. This is due to the number of people with mental health problems, which now numbers over 600 million, double the number from 15 years ago. That includes 52 million just in the U.S. and it indicates that 1 in 5 American adults has a mental health issue; the percentage of the U.S. population experiencing a behavioral mental health problem will go from 20% in 2020 to 29% by 2028. Despite that rise, the U.S. is not the leader when it comes to revenue; that goes to the Asia Pacific region, which is projected to continue to capture most of the revenue in this space for the next five years.
• Independence Blue Cross and Penn Medicine announced a plan to deepen their longstanding collaborations to transform healthcare in the Philadelphia region. The centerpiece of this expanding relationship is Independence's sale of a minority equity stake in its subsidiary, Tandigm Health, to Penn Medicine, which will allow more patients to continue seeing their trusted primary care providers close to home while offering new, innovative pathways to Penn Medicine's specialty care and other services. Together, the organizations will join forces in new ways to improve patient outcomes and drive more cost-efficient care, while also increasing provider satisfaction. The agreement, which officially launches on January 1, 2023, also contains a long-term commitment from Penn Medicine to work with Tandigm for all primary care value-based programs across all payors. This collaboration will bring more doctors and patients into a Tandigm value-based arrangement, and the existing Tandigm physician network will benefit from Penn Medicine services and access being made available through this collaboration. Penn Medicine will also have representation on the Tandigm Board of Directors.
• Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company announced a partnership with (RED), the organization co-founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver to fight health injustices. The partnership is celebrated with the announcement of a $250,000 commitment to the Global Fund, which will help strengthen healthcare systems and fund life-saving programs which support equitable access to testing and treatment in communities most in need. In addition to Panasonic's monetary commitment, a collection of (PANASONIC)RED products, spanning tech, cookware, personal hygiene and more, will bring awareness to the fight and empower consumers to choose (RED) when purchasing products.
• Clearsense, a technology company that partners with health care organizations to drive more value from their data, announced a new partnership and licensing agreement with UPMC Enterprises. This agreement will allow Clearsense to integrate the unstructured data platform developed by the UPMC Enterprises team into Clearsense's end-to-end data management platform, used by over 400 hospitals across the United States. By partnering with UPMC Enterprises, the venture capital, and innovation arm of health system UPMC, Clearsense will collaborate with the team of engineers and health care experts at UPMC to integrate Alexandria Charts with Clearsense's Next Generation Data Management and Delivery Platform. The addition of this technology will allow health care systems from around the country to enhance and expand the use of patient data to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of care.
• VoxNeuro, a Software-as-a-Medical-Device brain health company that analyzes brain biomarkers to assess cognitive function, announced a new partnership with the Canadian Armed Forces to study the cognitive effects following intense military training regimens designed to reflect a combat environment and blast exposure. The study will assess the effects of repetitive, sub-concussive exposure on cognitive functioning and brain electrophysiology with CAF personnel undergoing cognitive testing in tandem with EEG recordings before and after military training. The study seeks to understand the relationship between RSCE and behavioural symptoms, vestibular dysfunction, neurophysiology, and cognition to aid in early detection, prevention, treatment and prognosis.
• Evolution Optiks, a light field technology and complex optical systems company, launched three new health and wellness brands focused on eye care, brain health and neuro fitness: eye care brand, Optokare; diagnostic tool, DeCon; and OcuRay, a lifestyle and wellness brand targeted at professional and amateur athletes.
• Population genomics startup omica.bio announced its investment in web3 data management platform GenoBank.io. This new partnership is the next phase in both companies' work to promote fair and equitable genomic research in Latin America. As part of this partnership, genobank.io will provide omica.bio with web3 capabilities for the deployment of the first tokenized consent protocol. The technology will be deployed as part of a omica.bio's effort to sequence 10,000 whole-genomes from rare disease patients throughout Mexico and Central America.
• Outbound AI, a conversation AI company for healthcare, launched PayerVA Console. The SaaS solution, powered by Outbound AI’s Conversation AI Cloud, simplifies phone-based payer billing work for physician practices and medical billing companies. PayerVA Console provides a portfolio of virtual agents and out-of-the-box AI-powered automations for solving tedious claims processing with major commercial and Medicare Advantage health plans. It includes a rapid-training service to quickly automate most of a provider’s payer mix. The solution augments existing workers, improving their productivity while fostering a more enjoyable daily work experience.
• LendCare Capital, a Canadian finance and technology company, announced a new partnership with Doctors Eye Care Co-Op/Eye Recommend, a Canadian-based cooperative dedicated to the growth and success of independent optometry. This new partnership will support Eye Recommend's community of over 1,300 optometrists from coast-to-coast, in making optical health even more accessible to the approximately 40% of Canadians who may not have insurance to cover the costs.
• Homecare Homebase, a provider of software for home-based care, together with enterprise content management solution WorldView, announced a new collaboration designed to maximize efficiency for home health and hospice agencies. Connected since 2013, WorldView and Homecare Homebase integrate to provide agencies with the tools they need to streamline workflows and customize automation for order tracking, patient intake, medical records management, and more. Through the collaboration, agencies can easily track orders using barcode or text recognition regardless of the original source; seamlessly monitor staff productivity with real-time dashboards and data analytics; and automate data entry all while staying organized with digital annotations, notes, and stamps.
• Walmart named Kindbody, a family-building benefits provider for employers, as the fertility provider for its new Center of Excellence for family-building benefits. Associates will have access to Kindbody’s network of facilities across the U.S., including a new state-of-the-art clinic and in vitro fertilization lab in Rogers, Arkansas that will provide comprehensive virtual, at-home and in-clinic care. The new facility is expected to open later this year.
• Aktana, a provider of intelligent customer engagement for the life sciences industry, and Envision Pharma Group, a scientific communications company, announced a strategic partnership that provides medical teams with a comprehensive toolkit for more impactful scientific exchange. By bringing together their extensive technical and industry expertise, Envision and Aktana offer life science companies the ability to enable their medical science liaisons to address HCP demands for personalized, scientifically relevant content and coordinated omnichannel engagement.
• Johns Hopkins University and Howard University teamed up to develop medical devices to diagnosis, treat, and manage neurological disorders. Researchers with the new NeuroTech Harbor technology accelerator, supported by the National Institutes of Health, will collaborate with diverse partners worldwide to create equitable and accessible technologies and solutions. The goal is increase participation in the neurotech ecosystem by underserved communities so that the devices created there will be inclusive.
• Akon Lighting, an energy service provider, and GATC Health Corp., a science and technology company revolutionizing disease risk assessment and drug discovery using artificial intelligence and advanced genomic analysis, announced a partnership to interpret genetic and other biological data to identify predisposition to diseases and reduce unnecessary deaths of Africans and people of African heritage. The initiative will gather and study the genetics, biological data and other important health information of at least 1 million people across Africa. Utilizing GATC Health's proprietary AI platform, which can process and analyze the entire human genome, this broad set of data will be used to identify personalized healthcare solutions for the African participants, in addition to providing deep population health insights that can change the course of healthcare on the African continent.
• Babylon Health, a digital-first health service provider, and health insurer Bupa extended their partnership agreement for a further three years to deliver digital health services to 2.3 million Bupa UK health insurance customers. Bupa and Babylon have been in partnership since 2015, when access to the Babylon app for Bupa UK customers was launched. Since launch, there have been over 360,000 Babylon app downloads by Bupa UK Insurance customers.
• PerfectServe, a provider of cloud-based clinical collaboration and provider scheduling solutions, announced the successful go-live of a project at Cincinnati-based Bon Secours Mercy Health that utilizes its Clinical Collaboration solution to transform clinical workflows for nurses. Bon Secours Mercy Health is a long-time PerfectServe customer and is one of the top five largest Catholic health systems in the United States. Dubbed "Care Mobility," this project showcases how PerfectServe's extensive integration capability makes it a vital clearinghouse for nurses for many communications related to patient care, from calls and messages to alerts and alarms. The Bon Secours Mercy Health and PerfectServe teams partnered extensively to design and implement a solution that closely aligns with the needs of the health system and its nurses. 
• MDsave, an online medical service marketplace connecting providers, employers and consumers to affordable and accessible healthcare, announced a new partnership with West Jefferson Medical Center. This partnership is part of the ongoing expansion of MDsave’s efforts to bring affordable, quality healthcare to the communities of New Orleans. This partnership with MDsave opens the door to new patients by offering cash prices to those with high deductibles or who have no insurance.
• Instacart announced a new initiative called Instacart Health, which is aimed at making sure that every person has access to nutritious food. It involves a series of new products, partnerships, and policy commitments, including Fresh Funds, which allow organizations, including nonprofits, insurance companies, and employers, to provide funds for people to buy nutritious food from grocery retailers on the Instacart App; Care Carts, which are designed to give healthcare providers and caregivers the ability to order groceries on behalf of someone else; and Health Tags, which let customers view up to 23 item-level labels, including low-salt, low-sugar, keto, gluten-free, while they shop on Instacart. On top of its new products, Instacart announced partnerships with publishers Dotdash Meredith and Hearst Magazines and it unveiled its Health Policy Agenda, which outlines the company’s top three policy priorities and new advocacy commitments to help expand access to nutritious food and improve health outcomes.
• Cigna unveiled Cigna Pathwell, a new suite of products that connects customers with quality care providers to help improve health outcomes and lower costs for customers, their families, and their employers. Cigna Pathwell harnesses the analytics, clinical expertise, treatment planning, and personalized digital solutions within Evernorth, Cigna's health services business, and integrates them with Cigna's medical benefits management and high-performing provider networks to create a comprehensive and personalized care experience for patients living with high-cost health conditions. Patients in enrolled plans receive concierge service from Pathwell Specialty's dedicated care management team to connect them to convenient, quality, and affordable options for infusion therapies through Cigna's national Pathwell network of quality providers. The patient's treating physician continues to oversee their care, and the patient can receive infusions from participating hospitals, infusion centers, physicians' offices, or, in some cases, at home. Alternatively, treating providers can order specialty infused or injected medications directly through a specialty pharmacy in the Cigna Pathwell Specialty network.
• President Biden hosted the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health to catalyze action for the millions of Americans struggling with food insecurity and diet-related diseases like diabetes, obesity, and hypertension. The Conference laid out a vision for ending hunger and reducing diet-related disease by 2030, all while closing disparities among the communities that are impacted most. That includes more than $8 billion in private- and public-sector commitments, of which at least $2.5 billion will be invested in start-up companies that are pioneering solutions to hunger and food insecurity. Over $4 billion will be dedicated toward philanthropy that improves access to nutritious food, promotes healthy choices, and increases physical activity.
• AION Labs, an innovation lab spearheading the adoption of AI technologies and computational science to solve therapeutic challenges, announced the formation of OMEC.AI, the lab's first startup approved by the Israel Innovation Authority. The new company will develop AI-powered solutions to analyze pre-clinical data and identify gaps in efficacy and safety to improve the probability of success of drug candidates in clinical trials. OMEC.AI aims to build a next-generation computational platform that can both identify hidden safety liabilities and lack of efficacy for drug candidates, and suggest experiments to close the identified gaps. In addition to funding, support and mentorship, AION Labs and its pharma partners will provide OMEC.AI with pharmaceutical data for model training and advanced machine learning development.
• Amazon introduced Halo Rise, bedside tracker dedicated to helping improve sleep. Halo Rise uses built-in sensor technology, quietly working in the background to provide highly accurate insights and personalized sleep analysis. Powered by contactless, low-energy sensor technology and machine learning, Halo Rise accurately senses respiration and movement patterns to determine sleep stages throughout the night. It uses a sleep algorithm that has been trained and validated against overnight polysomnography—the clinical gold standard for sleep analysis. Halo Rise harnesses ambient technology that’s always ready, automatically starting a sleep session when the users gets into bed with no buttons to press or batteries to charge. After they wake, they receive a detailed sleep summary, including a graph showing time spent in each sleep phase—REM, light, and deep sleep—along with a sleep score and information about their sleep environment.
• Solarity, an intelligent automation engine for identifying and analyzing patient data, and OpenText, which enables organizations to gain insight through market leading information management solutions, announced a strategic partnership to offer a secure information exchange solution to healthcare providers and payers. The partnership brings together Solarity's intelligent automation platform for clinical data and the OpenText suite of digital fax products to enable physicians to make more informed clinical decisions faster. Solarity will process the documents received via OpenText secure document delivery solutions and automatically transmit the critical data to hospital and health system electronic health records.
• CirrusMD, a provider of on-demand virtual primary care, announced a partnership with NeuroFlow, a provider of technology and services for behavioral health integration. The partnership will allow the CirrusMD Provider Network to supplement its virtual primary care with NeuroFlow's comprehensive clinical decision support platform, intervention services, and patient engagement tools for behavioral health, enabling longitudinal care that improves anxiety and depression symptoms. The initial implementation, which was completed in one week, helped CirrusMD meet deadlines for two key employer groups looking for ways to support their employee populations. NeuroFlow's ability to triage and refer individuals to the right level of care – reducing wait times that can often deter people from seeking help – was instrumental in CirrusMD's partnership decision. The two organizations have built an integrated delivery system that tailors content, resources, and support staff to meet individual needs.
• Tenasol, a cloud-based healthcare analytics and data processing platform company, and Datavant, a company that helps organizations securely connect health data, announced a collaboration to accelerate “purpose-built” data and analytics solutions for the public sector. Through this strategic partnership, Tenasol and Datavant will focus initially on addressing the needs of disability and health benefit agencies to deliver more timely services to individuals in need. Datavant’s secure health data connectivity platform will enable Tenasol’s Geohealth™ solution to de-identify data and connect to an ecosystem of more than 500 real-world data partners, to power predictive models that improve service to claimants and beneficiaries.
• MindCo Health, a developer of mental health programs, launched MindCo Quit Vaping Program which features a Minecraft Adventure Map for servers. This program is designed to enable teens to gain knowledge and training about their relationship with vaping in a unique and effective way: through gaming. Backed by 100+ academic and clinical studies, MindCo Quit Vaping is a behavior change program developed by MindCo Health. Using years of experience with smoking cessation programs and other digital therapeutics, MindCo has partnered with GamerSafer, a safety tech company with a long track record in player safety and promoting positive, fair play experiences within online games. Together, these teams built an immersive Minecraft experience focused on vaping prevention and cessation: Players vs Vaping - Minecraft for Good.
• Sphere, a provider of end-to-end integrated healthcare payments and security software, and eMedical Practice,  an all-inclusive medical software company, joined to deliver seamless payment acceptance through eMedical's software. Together, eMedical Practice and Sphere's TrustCommerce payment processing platform support a full array of in-person, e-commerce and back-office payments. Dedicated to a frictionless patient experience, practices receive white glove, personalized service tailored to the organization's needs.
• Certific a platform that enables certified remote medical testing at scale, partnered with at home-testing platform PocDoc to launch a number of remote monitoring pilot schemes for cardiovascular disease which will be carried out in conjunction with the NHS. The combination of PocDoc’s technology which allows smartphone users to carry out at-home blood tests with accuracy, and Certific’s certified remote medical diagnostics technology, will see patients across the UK able to confidently monitor for cardiovascular disease through a number of indicators.
• Finvi, a provider of enterprise workflow automation software built to accelerate revenue recovery and simplify the payments process, announced expanded functionality of its Artiva HCx solution to better support post-acute care providers including home health, skilled nursing facilities and long-term care hospitals. The expanded functionality set includes workflow and user interface enhancements for recurring and non-recurring encounters, interim and interval billing, professional claims, and institutional claims. This new functionality set will give post-acute providers a more accurate and working picture of claims and balances associated with a single encounter.
• AdminaHealth, a provider of premium billing solutions for the healthcare, insurance, and voluntary benefits marketplace, announced it is joining the Ease Marketplace as a broker support partner offering premium billing services. Ease is a benefits administration and HR software that enables health insurance brokers to move enrollment online. Brokers can now seamlessly integrate AdminaHealth's premium billing services with other partners on the Ease Marketplace. The integration enables brokers to auto-reconcile carrier invoices, compare actual versus expected employee benefits premium payroll deductions, and generate consolidated monthly invoices for all coverages.
• P4 Diagnostix, a network of nationally recognized laboratories, partnered with Pierian, a provider of advanced clinical genomics technology and services, to launch somatic testing for prostate cancer patients. Using the Illumina TruSight Oncology 500 cancer panel, P4 and Pierian will expand P4's Urology NGS services to incorporate somatic testing which will complement P4's current germline testing product, UroSeq. The testing will launch at P4's Indianapolis laboratory.
• The number of suicides in 2021 rose 4% year-to-year, as did the suicide rate, growing to 47,646 from 45,979 in 2020. In fact, they were up every single month from the same time frame in 2020, except for January, February, and July, with the largest increase coming in October, with an 11% jump. The increases were brought about by young people, particularly those aged 15 to 24, which saw their suicide rate rise by 8%. This should not be a surprised as more than a third of high school students reported they experienced poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, and 44% reported they persistently felt sad or hopeless over the previous year Those aged 25 to 34 saw their suicide rate go up 4%, 35 to 44 year olds were up 5%, and 65 to 74 year olds rose by 4%. Meanwhile, those aged 75 and over had their suicide rate decline 2% year-to-year, making them the only age group to see their rate go down, even as the actual number of suicides still rose 1% from 2020. The sharpest increase came among females aged 10 to 14, who saw their suicide rate increase by 15%, while males of the same age saw their rate drop 6% in the same time frame; they were the only group to see an overall decline in the number of suicides from 2020 to 201. Still, the over number of males in this age group who committed suicide was still larger at 356, compared to 237 in females. Despite the increase, the total number of suicides in 2021 still remained 1% lower than the total number in 2018.
• Headspace Health launched the External Research Collaborator Program, which is designed to allow researchers, such as academic researchers, non-profits, government agencies, and healthcare institutions, to submit proposals to conduct scientific studies using the Headspace app. In particular, Headspace Health is looking for research proposals focused on mediational and mechanistic factors, diverse populations, and novel research questions. Diversity has become a driving force for the company, as it recently acquired Shine, an app dedicated to inclusive mental health and wellness support. The idea is to allow researchers to use the app as a way to study the broad effectiveness of digital mental health interventions. In conjunction with this new, the company also consolidated its individual scientific advisory boards, forming the Headspace Health Scientific Advisory Board, with the goal to streamline the team’s scientific guidance and work towards research efforts that will impact the broad spectrum of products and services within Headspace Health’s platform.
• WellSpan Health announced two projects that will expand access to patients seeking behavioral health care. WellSpan Philhaven teams across the region annually serve 64,000 patients with behavioral health needs across WellSpan’s six counties. In order to meet the growing demand for services, more than $30 million will be invested at both the WellSpan Philhaven campus in Mt. Gretna and the WellSpan York Hospital campus in York as part of this effort. WellSpan York Hospital’s behavioral health unit also will undergo a transformation as part of the WellSpan York Hospital Expansion project. This new area will provide care teams and patients with a modernized, state-of-the-art environment. The unit will offer acute, medical, sub-acute and step-down pods, dedicated serenity spaces and seclusion spaces, as well as private and group therapy spaces.
• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Veterans Health Administration announced a collaboration intended to help accelerate American medical device innovation to further improve and benefit public health. Veteran Affairs' VA Ventures Innovation Institute, located in Seattle, will host up to 12 FDA staff to foster robust collaborations between the two agencies. The FDA staff will focus on the regulatory science — the science for evaluating the benefits and risks of new products — while VA staff will provide clinical context for test development and provide hands-on training and other immersive experiences for innovators wishing to utilize the tools. Together, the organizations will work toward developing and disseminating new tools designed to test the safety and effectiveness of medical devices and emerging technologies. These "off-the-shelf" testing tools will provide innovators with straightforward, reproducible and cost-effective testing methods throughout the product development cycle. Providing standardized tests can help streamline the regulatory evaluation process, accelerating the time it takes for products to reach patients by increasing predictability in the product development process. This effort may also reduce risks for early innovators that might not have access to more elaborate testing systems.
• A blood test taken at the time of Covid-19 infection could predict who is most likely to develop long Covid, a new small-scale study led by UCL researchers suggested. The study, published in eBioMedicine, analysed proteins in the blood of healthcare workers infected with SARS-CoV-2, comparing them to samples from healthcare workers who had not been infected. Usually protein levels in the body are stable, but the researchers found a dramatic difference in levels of some of the proteins up to six weeks following infection, suggesting disruption to a number of important biological processes. Using an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm, they identified a “signature” in the abundance of different proteins that successfully predicted whether or not the person would go on to report persistent symptoms a year after infection.The researchers say that, if these findings are repeated in a larger, independent group of patients, a test could potentially be offered alongside a polymerase chain reaction test that could predict people’s likelihood of developing long Covid.
• The House passed a bill that seeks to address mental health concerns among students, families and educators aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which lawmakers say had a “severe impact” on those three groups. The bill, titled the Mental Health Matters Act, passed in a largely party-line 220-205 vote. The legislation, if passed by the Senate and signed into law, would provide grants to establish a pipeline for school-based mental health service professionals. Additionally, it would grow the number of mental health experts at elementary and secondary schools that are based in high-need locations. The measure would direct the Department of Education to allocate those grants. The Department of Education would also be ordered to administer grants to state educational agencies to go towards recruiting and maintaining school-based mental health service providers at public elementary and secondary schools that are considered high need.
• Abu Dhabi Investment Office collaborated with Innovaccer, a health cloud company, to improve the accessibility, affordability and quality of health care in the UAE and across the Middle East. Under the deal, Adio, the government body responsible for attracting investment, will provide Innovaccer with financial and non-financial incentives to help it establish its regional headquarters and a research and development hub in Abu Dhabi. The incentives will be part of Adio’s Dh2 billion ($545 million) Innovation Programme.
• Align Technology, amedical device company that designs, manufactures, and sells the Invisalign system of clear aligners, iTero intraoral scanners, and exocad CAD/CAM software for digital orthodontics and restorative dentistry, introduced Invisalign Virtual Care AI, its next generation remote monitoring solution with new artificial intelligence-assisted capabilities that streamline workflows for doctors and their staff. It includes features such as patient enrollment, setup, and review directly on the Invisalign Doctor Site without the need to use separate standalone solutions. Invisalign Virtual Care AI helps doctors remotely monitor Invisalign treatment progress based on their own pre-approved clinical settings and AI-assisted algorithms for Automatic Assessment calibrated to each doctor’s ClinCheck treatment features. AI-assisted Automated Notifications, based on doctor settings, guide patients to either advance to the next aligner stage if their treatment is tracking well or to stay on their current stage for longer or to contact their doctor if their treatment is not tracking.
• Launchit Ventures, a HealthTech solutions provider, and metaMe Health, a Prescription Digital Therapeutics company and developer of Regulora, announced a global partnership to bring Regulora® to the Canadian market for the treatment of abdominal pain due to IBS. Launchit Ventures will work to obtain regulatory authorization in Canada and will develop a commercialization strategy and execution plan to make Regulora available to patients with IBS in Canada markets.
• BD, a medical technology company, in conjunction with Heart to Heart International, the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, and Henry Schein Cares, announced that six U.S. free and charitable clinics will be awarded product-based grants worth a total of $360,000 to support point-of-care diagnostic testing in communities with underserved and at-risk patient populations. The BD Point-of-Care, Enhancing Clinical Effectiveness initiative will provide the clinics with laboratory equipment to evaluate patients and receive diagnostic test results while still onsite. The initiative focuses on diagnosing the most common health issues faced by vulnerable patients in underserved populations, including high cholesterol, diabetes, urinary tract infections, kidney disease, blood clotting disorders, liver disease, strep A, HIV, hepatitis C, flu A & B, RSV and pregnancy tests.
• Wellframe, a member experience solutions for health plans, and Linkwell Health, a consumer engagement technology and content company serving health plans and health services organizations, announced the launch of Wellsquared, a new product designed to deepen engagement with members and help health plans deliver the modern healthcare experience members expect. Wellsquared will enable health plans to seamlessly onboard members, better educate them about their health plan and care options, and empower them to more effectively activate and utilize their benefits.
• Revere Partners launched a venture capital fund focused exclusively on oral health, identifying opportunities for investors and providing capital for innovations in the oral and systemic health sectors. The fund has been operational for over two years and works with oral tech companies, startups, investors, and DSOs, fostering strategic partnerships that improve care delivery and patient and provider experiences, driving maximum returns for investors. Revere Partners offers investors a platform to diversify investments into startups and provide capital to an innovative, recession resistant, patient and practice-centered industry. Revere Partners already has significant Assets Under Management, grown its portfolio to 24 high-performing investments, has had one successful exit, and is continuing to raise funds targeting $200 million AUM.
• Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota announced a collaboration that will provide no-cost access to Health In Her HUE, a digital platform connecting Black women and women of color with culturally sensitive health care providers. Participants will also be able to join Health In Her HUE's Virtual Care Squad experience, a support group designed by and for Black women and women of color that focuses on relevant health topics. This effort is part of Blue Cross' five-year place-based collaboration with the city of Brooklyn Center, one of the most racially diverse cities in Minnesota and the only municipality in the state that is Black led at both the Mayoral and City Manager levels. Blue Cross will fund approximately 200 memberships to Health In Her HUE within Brooklyn Center.
• Tangent90, a technology company that develops digital solutions to support pharmaceutical companies by enhancing their engagement with healthcare professionals, entered into a strategic partnership with healthcare knowledge provider BMJ. BMJ and Tangent90 have an established relationship. When demand for digital content increased, they quickly recognised that Tangent90's Trustrack solution would enable them to compliantly distribute their publications across all digital channels, helping their clients drive better HCP engagement and providing tracking and insight.
• MDsave, an online medical service marketplace connecting providers, employers and consumers to affordable and accessible healthcare, announced a new partnership with VHC Health, a community-based health system providing medical services to the Washington, DC metropolitan area. This collaboration with MDsave allows VHC Health to fulfill their shared commitment to price transparency, the ability to partner with local employers for greater access to care for employees and opens the door to new patients by offering affordable prices and payment options to those with high deductibles or who have no insurance.
• ShiftMed, an on-demand workforce platform that delivers labor to acute, post-acute, and in-home providers and enterprise health systems, announced a partnership with Uber Health, with the goal of removing transportation barriers for healthcare professionals, providing them with meaningful benefits that truly help them with their daily needs. ShiftMed's 100,000+ professionals will now be able to seamlessly access on-demand rides with Uber Health directly within the ShiftMed app. They'll be able to request rides to and from their upcoming shifts, for both in the home and in a facility. This partnership will help enable healthcare professionals to overcome transportation barriers and therefore expand their current serviceable area. It will also help health professionals arrive on time and reduce last-minute cancellations. High-performing clinicians will also receive additional benefits from ShiftMed such as vouchers for meals & grocery delivery with Uber Eats. With the ongoing nursing shortage, ShiftMed is dedicated to offering caregivers greater flexibility and earning opportunities while also reducing stress and burnout.
• Illinois-based research center Discovery Partners Institute, CVS Health and technology services firm Interapt announced a new partnership that seeks to prepare thousands of Chicagoans for lucrative tech jobs. The program, Chicago/Skills, will provide tuition-free technology training and paid apprenticeship opportunities to as many as 2,500 people over five years. Individuals who pass the 12-week training curriculum and interview process will be offered a job. CVS Health has signed on to be an anchor employer of the effort, committing to hiring more than 200 successful participants over the next three years in the Chicago market.
• Epicore Biosystems, a digital health company developing advanced sweat-sensing wearables to provide real-time personalized hydration insights for performance and safety, announced a new collaboration with 3M's Health Care Business, a manufacturer and distributor of medical products and solutions, and Innovize, a custom medical device manufacturer. Leveraging 3M's leading skin-interfacing materials and Innovize's manufacturing capabilities, Epicore Biosystems will further scale its portfolio of advanced wearable hydration solutions.
• Thorne HealthTech,  developer of solutions for a personalized approach to health and wellness and Team Liquid, a professional esports organization, announced that Thorne is now the official Health and Wellness Partner of Team Liquid. Thorne will offer pathways for personalized health and wellness through quizzes, health tests, and nutritional supplements to support the Team Liquid community – from the professional athlete to the casual gamer – in optimizing peak performance, endurance, and recovery. Thorne's suite of science-backed products and solutions for nutritional support, restful sleep, and mental focus align and support the esports community's health and wellness standards.
• Stellar Health, a healthcare technology company focused on activating value-based arrangements, announced a partnership with Minnesota Community Care, the state's largest federally qualified health center, to drive value-based care initiatives within their clinics. Minnesota Community Care has been a safety-net health care provider for marginalized and underserved communities since 1969. The health center provides full-service health care across a total of 19 clinics, serving more than 10,000 patients. Stellar will support Minnesota Community Care by offering real-time incentives tied to the completion of these high-value actions. Providers and care team members within their network are rewarded for going above and beyond to deliver exceptional care to thousands of patients.
• Solve.Care, a healthcare platform company that leverages blockchain to deliver better care, and ClinicalSquared, a multi-disciplinary technology consulting company specializing in custom software development, announced that they have joined forces to create Web 3.0 health networks on the Solve.Care Platform. The decentralized Care.Platform from Solve.Care allows for the quick creation and deployment of interoperable health networks. Governments, businesses and even individuals can author their own networks using the Care.Labs low-code development portal.

M&A

• e4 Services, a provider of healthcare consulting and professional services to hospitals and healthcare systems, merged with Intellis, a provider of coding, health information management, clinical documentation integrity, and auditing services
• PAG, an alternative investment firm focused on Asia-Pacific, along with consortium partners CX Partners and Samara Capital, completed its acquisition of a controlling stake in pharmaceutical firm Optimus Drugs
• Apollo Medical Holdings, a company focused on enabling providers in the successful delivery of value-based care, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire All American Medical Group, a primary and specialty care physicians' group, and For Your Benefit, as well as certain related managed care assets
• Prescryptive Health, a healthcare technology company delivering solutions that empower consumers, acquired Northwest Pharmacy Services, a full-service, nonprofit Pharmacy Benefit Manager serving members in the Pacific Northwest
• InterWell Health, a physician-centric value-based kidney care provider, acquired Acumen Physician Solutions, provider of electronic health record and practice management software for nephrology practices
• Wellable, an employee wellness technology and services provider, acquired Sweat Factor, a fitness streaming platform
• One Equity Partners, a middle market private equity firm, completed its acquisition of Prime Time Healthcare, a healthcare staffing services provider
• Mindset Pharma, a drug discovery company, announced an exclusive licensing agreement for Cybin, a company engineering next generation psychedelic molecules, to acquire intellectual property rights for a subset of Mindset's preclinical compounds. Under the terms of the Agreement, Cybin will license intellectual property related to preclinical compounds within Mindset's "Family 1" portfolio, excluding MSP-1014, Mindset's lead psychedelic drug candidate.
• Torrent Pharmaceuticals Limited, an Indian multinational pharmaceutical company, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Curatio Healthcare, a speciality dermatology company
• Teleflex Incorporated, a provider of medical technologies, completed its acquisition of Standard Bariatrics, which has commercialized an innovative powered stapling technology for bariatric surgery
• Tenth Avenue Holdings, a diversified holding company that operates and invests in privately and publicly held businesses, acquired a majority stake in Under Your Skin, a natural skin and hair care brand based in Sweden
• Emmes, a Clinical Research Organization dedicated to supporting the advancement of public health and biopharmaceutical innovation, acquired Clinical Edge, which trains and certifies visual function examiners at investigator sites conducting Phase I to IV ophthalmic clinical trials
• GENinCode plc, developer of products that combine genetic and clinical data to risk assess patients, acquired ovarian cancer company Abcodia
• Wolters Kluwer Health, a provider of professional information, software solutions, and services for the clinicians, nurses, accountants, lawyers, and tax, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and regulatory sectors. signed and completed an agreement to acquire IJS Publishing Group, a provider of peer-reviewed medical journals supporting scientists and authors
• Irwin Naturals, nutraceutical company, signed a definitive agreement to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of Keta Media, a growth platform for clinics offering ketamine-assisted therapy
• Solid Biosciences, a life sciences company focused on advancing meaningful therapies for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, acquired AavantiBio, a gene therapy company focused on transforming the lives of patients with Friedreich’s ataxia and rare cardiomyopathies
• Coastal Medical Transportation Systems, a medical transportation company, acquired the Massachusetts medical transportation arm, comprised of Fallon Ambulance Service and LifeLine Ambulance Service, of mobile healthcare services and logistics management solution Transformative Healthcare
• Verily, a a subsidiary of Alphabet that is using a data-driven, people-first approach to change the way people manage their health, acquired Granular Insurance Company, an insurer for self-funded employers

Funding Roundup

• GoHealth, a health insurance marketplace and Medicare-focused digital health company, raised $50 million 
• Kupando, a biopharmaceutical company developing TLR 4/7 agonists that stimulate innate immunity for use in oncology and infectious diseases, raised €13 million
• Butterfly Learnings, a pediatric development and behaviour health platform, raised $1.5 million
• DAMONA Pharmaceuticals, a pre-clinical pharmaceutical company, raised $5.5 million
• Peachy, a digital health insurance provider, raised £1.5 million
• Molbio Diagnostics, which provides solutions for universal access to high-quality healthcare, raised $85 million
• Optellum, an AI platform to diagnose and treat early-stage lung cancer, raised $14 million
• CraniUS, an R&D company focused on building treatments for patients with chronic brain disease, raised $19.4 million
• Arcascope, a company solving the problem of circadian rhythms disruption caused by modern life, raised $2.85 million
• NemaLife, a techbio company focused on high throughput in vivo screening, raised $320,000
• DocSpera, an integrated healthcare surgical data and image communication company, raised $10 million
• Dalan Animal Health, a biotech company pioneering insect health and immunology, raised $3.55 million
• Avelo, a breath diagnostic specialist raised CHF 2.2 million
• Curate, developer of technology for cell therapy manufacturing, raised $12 million
• Form Bio, a company offering a computational life sciences platform, entered the market with $30 million
• XP Health, a virtual-first eye care company raised $17.1 million
• Cionic, a developer of bionic clothing for the mobility impaired, raised $12.5 million
• Qnovia, a pharma company developing inhaled therapeutics with an initial focus on nicotine replacement therapy and cardiopulmonary diseases, raised $17 million
• Kaleidoscope, an operating system that accelerates research team performance, raised $6 million
• Rippl, a mental health company focused on caring for seniors with dementia and other neurocognitive conditions, launched with $32 million
• careviso, a provider of molecular diagnostic patient access technology, raised over $17 million
• Lissun, a mental and emotional health startup, raised $1 million
• Pheon Therapeutics, an Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) specialist developing ADCs for a wide range of hard-to-treat cancers, launched with $68 million
• InHome Therapy, a Home Therapy as a Service solution in the home health market, raised $22 million
• Grow Therapy, a provider-centric mental health group, raised $75 million
• Delphinus, developer of a breast cancer screening device, raised $30 million
• Infiuss Health, developer of a decentralized SaaS platform to power remote research and clinical trials in Africa, raised an undisclosed amount of funding
• Hume AI, a platform that equips researchers and developers with machine learning tools to better understand vocal and nonverbal communication, raised $3 million
• Lissun, which aims to solve mental health at scale by providing full-stack solutions, raised $1 million
• Kahun, an evidence-based clinical reasoning tool for physicians, raised $8 million
• Doccla, a virtual ward and patient monitoring technology company, raised £15 million
• EnPlusOne Biosciences, a biotechnology company harnessing the power of enzymes to synthesize RNA oligonucleotides, launched with $12 million
• NelDerm, which develops and sells unique medical devices focused on the prevention and treatment of wounds, raised $750,000
• XUND, a company that allows digital health companies to build a digital health assistant, raised €6 million
• Pulp Culture, a fermentation sciences company, raised $7 million
• iXCells Biotechnologies, a provider of cell-based products and discovery services to the academic, biotech and pharmaceutical communities, raised an undisclosed amount of funding

(Image source: cdn.cta.tech)