Digital health news, funding round up in the prior week; May 8, 2023

COVID no longer a global emergency; Convergent Therapeutics raised $90M; CVS/One Medical deal closed

Top Health News

• AmerisourceBergen announced a strategic partnership with SteadyMD, a B2B telehealth infrastructure provider that powers high-quality telehealth patient experiences for leaders and innovators in healthcare. The two organizations have kicked off their collaboration with the cocreation of a telehealth solution focused on Test to Treat opportunities. The solution is being offered as a pilot to independent community pharmacies across the US.
• Tia, a healthtech company focused on women, announced the expansion of its mental health services, including the launch of new mental health programming for improved mental and physical health: Groups, an 8-week program designed to build connection among women with shared lived experiences, health challenges, and identities, and Coaching, an appointment designed to release feelings of anxiety, sadness, stress, or emotional tension and devise an actionable plan forward.
• Hapbee Technologies, a wearable, wellness technology company and creator of the Hapbee Smart Sleep Pad, announced a partnership with Reputable Health to develop customized sleep routines which would be accessible through Hapbee products and are derived from A.I.-driven algorithms that will analyze consumers' sleep data gathered through the Reputable Health platform.
• Annalise.ai, an artificial intelligence radiology company, announced it is continuing its global expansion with the opening of the Annalise India Centre in Chennai — Annalise's first establishment in India. The expansion into India continues Annalise.ai's fast-paced growth trajectory as it continues to increase its visibility and capabilities in new markets like the USA, UK, Europe, and Asia. The Annalise India Centre will become a part of this international network and concentrate on the development and marketing of new products. Annalise.ai combines superior imaging data with the very best in computer science to produce comprehensive AI clinical decision support solutions, empowering clinicians to make accurate, faster decisions.
• As virtual care enters a new phase of outcome-focused care to address existing problems within the current health system, Coviu and Alcidion announced a real-time remote patient monitoring solution. With Alcidion’s Miya Care app now integrated into Coviu’s platform, care teams can set up tasks for patients during their recovery at home. Results from these tasks feed back into Coviu in real-time through video consultations, meaning practitioners can stay on top of patients' symptoms over time before they escalate and turn into emergency conditions.
• Carenet Health, a provider of 24/7 and on-demand patient engagement solutions, announced that it has partnered with Far Eastern University Alabang, FEU Diliman, and FEU Institute of Technology, all private universities in Manila, Philippines, to establish a robust internship program to create opportunities for their students, particularly those with specializations in business, web and mobile application, data science, and business analytics. The data labeling internship program will allow participating students to foster beneficial career and life skills while providing a valuable service to Carenet’s CX Analytics Group, which works to identify points of friction in the healthcare consumer service journey experience.
• Virginia Hospital Center, a community-based health system providing medical services to the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and the Virginia area, and Unite Us, a software company enabling cross-sector collaboration to improve people's well-being, are partnering through the Unite Virginia network. This network allows users to send and receive secure, electronic referrals and monitor patient outcomes in real-time. Through their partnership, VHC Health and Unite Us aim to address the unmet needs of people and families throughout the state.
• CirrusMD announced that it has been selected by Michaels, the largest specialty retailer of arts, crafts, and home décor in North America, to provide on-demand virtual primary care for its part-time and seasonal U.S.-based Team Members. Using CirrusMD’s secure, chat-based mobile and desktop apps, Michaels part-time Team Members can now initiate on-demand virtual care encounters with board-certified physicians in less than 60 seconds, at no cost to the Team Member for the consultation. Employees interact directly with a doctor from start to finish, without wasting time with chat bots, intake forms or virtual waiting rooms that delay care.
• Patient Square Capital, a health care investment firm, announced the formation of Elevage Medical Technologies, a new portfolio company to support the growth of promising medical device companies by providing capital and deep strategic expertise.  Patient Square has made a capital commitment of $300 million to Elevage Medical Technologies. The newly-formed company will deliver financial and strategic growth support to a broad set of medical device technology companies that are at the forefront of transforming health care through cutting-edge devices that enhance health outcomes and quality of life for patients.
• FemGevity, a women-led telemedicine company that focuses on delivering personalized, affordable, and ongoing care to women dealing with menopause symptoms, officially launched. This digital platform offers women a holistic and encompassing approach to menopause care, in contrast to the "one size fits all" mentality that has been the norm for too long. FemGevity aims to make these advanced precision medicine services available and affordable to all women, thus leveling the playing field and making high-quality healthcare accessible to more people. FemGevity's approach involves personalized one-on-one consultations with doctors, laboratory testing and analysis, longevity retention plans, and more. This allows patients and doctors to collaborate and tailor treatment plans to meet specific needs.
• Widespread loneliness in the U.S. poses health risks as deadly as smoking a dozen cigarettes daily, costing the health industry billions of dollars annually, the U.S. surgeon general said, declaring the latest public health epidemic. About half of U.S. adults say they’ve experienced loneliness, Dr. Vivek Murthy said in an 81-page report from his office. The declaration is intended to raise awareness around loneliness but won’t unlock federal funding or programming devoted to combatting the issue. Research shows that Americans, who have become less engaged with worship houses, community organizations and even their own family members in recent decades, have steadily reported an increase in feelings of loneliness. The number of single households has also doubled over the last 60 years.
• Flatiron Health announced a new collaboration with Sanofi in their pursuit to redesign the clinical trial experience for sponsors, sites, and patients in the therapeutic area of oncology. The multi-study collaboration between Sanofi and Flatiron will focus on improving clinical trial data acquisition, delivery, and quality through site-facing technology that digitally transfers data captured in the electronic health record (EHR) directly into the electronic data capture (EDC) system through Flatiron Health’s EHR-to-EDC product, Flatiron Clinical Pipe™. Clinical trial sites will be able to reduce time spent on both manual, high-volume data entry and downstream data resolution issues, so that they have more time to spend with patients.
• Longevity Health Plan and Humana announced a new partnership to expand special needs health plan offerings that support the unique requirements of Medicare-eligible individuals living in skilled nursing and senior living facilities. The two companies have committed to rapidly scale their national partnership over the next three years in more than a dozen states by offering Special Needs Plans that provide personalized care designed to materially improve health outcomes through holistic, patient-centric care plans.
• Noom for Work, a commercial behavior change company, announced that it will deliver two new preventive health solutions to commercial members of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield’s: Noom Weight and Noom’s Diabetes Prevention Program. Beginning April 3, 2023, both programs will be accessed via CareFirst WellBeing as a benefit to all commercial members, opening up always-on access to Noom’s psychology-based app for the full member population. Users will take a brief assessment in the app to determine the program that best fits their profile.
• UPS Healthcare announced plans to open seven new locations in addition to its existing 70 facilities in the coming months, company leaders said during the April 25 Q1 2023 earnings meeting. UPS Healthcare expects to generate up to $10 billion from healthcare revenue in 2023, executives noted during the call. In August 2022, UPS announced it would acquire European-based Bomi Group, a multinational healthcare logistics company, to bolster its capabilities in the global healthcare market. The deal closed in November 2022.
• Healthcare technology and clinical content provider Agilio Software announced it extended its long-running partnership with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which will see it produce clinical knowledge summaries for at least three more years. Extending the partnership will see Agilio Software continue to author content for the NICE CKS library. The library contains over 375 clinical topics and over 2,000 patient scenarios and is accessed by over 650,000 clinicians every month.
• Angle Health, a digital-first, full-stack health benefits platform bringing transparency, simplicity, and ease of use in a frictionless experience, announced a new partnership with Ideon, an API platform powering digital experiences in health insurance and benefits. Leveraging Ideon's APIs, Angle Health now powers a fast, easy, and automated enrollment experience across the growing ecosystem of benefits administration platforms.
• Westmont Living, a family-owned, full-service senior living company, announced its next advancement in innovative care through a new multi-year partnership with August Health, in which August Health’s modern EHR platform will be implemented across all of Westmont Living’s communities. The partnership continues Westmont Living’s leadership in leveraging technology to deliver the best experience for its staff, residents, and families. Westmont Living’s commitment to innovation has long-guided its identification of technology partners that deliver tangible impact on staff productivity, staff satisfaction, and quality of resident care.
• Iterative Health, a pioneer in precision-medicine technologies for gastroenterology, announced today that it has partnered with Allied Digestive Health, a gastroenterology practice, to bring Clinical Trial Optimization to ADH’s research centers across New Jersey and New York to aid in the recruitment of patients for inflammatory bowel disease clinical trials. Allied Digestive Health is one of the largest integrated networks of gastroenterology care centers in the nation with over 200 providers and 60 locations throughout New Jersey and New York. Allied Digestive Health’s mission to empower gastroenterologists to deliver compassionate, high quality, and comprehensive care through an unparalleled patient experience directly aligns with Iterative Health’s mission to democratize access to quality gastrointestinal care through the application of computer vision technology.
• Catalyst Health Network, a clinically integrated network for independent primary care provider in Texas, announced it has formed a long-term partnership with agilon health. a company empowering physicians to transform health care in our communities. The partnership will bring agilon’s value-based, Total Care Model to Catalyst’s expansive primary care network and build upon Catalyst’s proven model of relationship-driven care to improve outcomes and experience for senior patients throughout Texas.
• Domo Health, a a company in the field of digital health, entered into a strategic partnership with SAK (St. Gallisch-Appenzellische Kraftwerke AG), the public energy service provider in Eastern Switzerland. With this move, SAK has acquired a participation in Domo Health as part of a round of capital raising. Together, Domo Health and SAK will expand an offer promoting digital health in private households. In addition, Domo Health has announced the launch of its digital health platform domo.health, aimed at revolutionising the coordination of care and optimisation of resources. Two achievements that illustrate the potential and relevance of innovative solutions for both patients and healthcare professionals.
• Recuro Health, an integrated digital health solutions company designed to transition the U.S. healthcare system from a reactive, disease-focused model to a proactive care approach, announced a partnership with Ease, the number one rated benefits administration and human resource software company powered by insurance brokers to manage benefits and HR for 3.4 million+ employees. Recuro will provide access to its Digital Medical Home, which includes diagnostic-enabled Virtual Primary Care (VPC) and Virtual Behavioral Health solutions that are tailored to fit the healthcare needs of any population. The Digital Medical Home care model integrates advanced science, data, at-home diagnostics and targeted genomics – cancer screening, pharmacogenomics – to better inform integrated care.
• Innovaccer announced that Emcara Health, PopHealthCare's national value-based medical group that delivers advanced in-home primary care for seniors and vulnerable populations, has selected Innovaccer's Best in KLAS data platform to accelerate its ability to drive growth and rapidly scale Emcara Health's integrated care solution to more communities nationwide. The Innovaccer data platform will enhance Emcara Health's ability to create unified patient records that provide a 360-degree holistic view of patients by integrating data from myriad EHRs, HIT systems, and third-party community data (such as SDoH).3 Interoperable, EHR-agnostic physician engagement will further providers' efforts to close coding and care gaps at the point of care and make informed decisions that drive better clinical outcomes. Data-driven, customizable TCM protocols will help ensure effective care coordination with automated transitional and chronic care management for at-risk and rising-risk populations.
• AcuityMD, providerd of a novel commercial platform for medical technology companies, announced its partnership with FEMSelect, a MedTech manufacturer specializing in a minimally invasive approach to treat pelvic floor disorders. FEMSelect is leveraging AcuityMD’s platform to accelerate identification and engagement of U.S. physicians treating PFDs, which affect at least one in five women.
• A partnership between the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Ochsner Lafayette General will address the critical need for registered nurses in the Acadiana region through the creation of an accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree program. Ochsner Lafayette General is Acadiana’s largest non-profit regional health system. Directed by UL Lafayette’s College of Nursing & Health Sciences and its LHC Group · Myers School of Nursing, the program will enable students who hold a bachelor’s degree in any field to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing in less time.
• Sifter SP and Ayble Health entered into a partnership to integrate Sifter's innovative Shop By Diet technology and enhanced food and nutrition data into Ayble's precision nutrition program. This partnership provides Ayble members an unprecedented level of dietary support for Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, and other chronic digestive conditions.
• Altera Digital Health, a global healthcare IT innovator, announced it has expanded its partnership with Pipeline Health, a community-based hospital system headquartered in Los Angeles. The seven-year contract will extend Pipeline Health’s use of the Paragon electronic health record at four Los Angeles-area hospitals and deploy the system at White Rock Medical Center in Dallas.
• The Oncology Institute, a value-based community oncology group, announced that they have entered into a formal agreement to make IDEOlogy Health its exclusive provider of multi-channel medical education for its healthcare providers. The two companies are joining forces to collaborate and exchange ideas, data, and the latest treatment updates to build custom multi-channel medical education to ensure better patient outcomes.
• etherFAX announced its partnership with ASI Technology Advisors, a full-service cloud technology provider. Together, ASI and etherFAX are enabling healthcare organizations and enterprises to digitize workflows and securely exchange business-critical information by extending legacy faxing solutions to the cloud. The collaboration between the companies aims to help healthcare organizations and enterprises extend legacy fax systems and applications to the cloud.
• NextGen Healthcare, a provider of cloud-based healthcare technology solutions, announced the integration of the American Society of Addiction Medicine CONTINUUM into the NextGen Behavioral Health Suite. Considered the industry’s leading standard in addiction assessment and treatment protocol, ASAM’s collaboration with NextGen Healthcare delivers guidelines that assist providers in determining the severity of substance use disorders and outlines best practices in addiction management. A partner since 2016, NextGen Healthcare is now helping to expand access to ASAM’s tools in Arizona's public behavioral health system. The program aims to improve adoption of evidence-based quality care for the assessment and treatment of SUDs.
• Getlabs, a provider of at-home diagnostic collections, partnered with Nice Healthcare, an in-home and virtual primary care clinic, to expand access to in-home healthcare services and lab testing. The partnership is expected to help improve access to these services, making it easier and more convenient for people to get the care they need. The partnership between Getlabs and Nice Healthcare is set to transform the at-home healthcare industry by providing patients with more personalized and affordable services. Patients can expect to receive access to a wide range of diagnostic tests, including blood tests, genetic tests, and more. The companies' combined expertise will ensure that patients receive the best possible care and support throughout their healthcare journey.
• Mayo Clinic Platform is expanding its distributed data network, Mayo Clinic Platform_Connect1, to include Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in Brazil, Sheba Medical Center in Israel and University Health Network in Canada, joining Mercy, Connect’s first member. The first-of-its-kind global alliance establishes a data-sharing network that transcends language barriers and accelerates AI-based solutions by using current data science and years of clinical data to create better patient outcomes around the world.
• Advanta Health Solutions, a health technology company that helps Plans and Plan Sponsors improve the physical and mental wellbeing of their employees, members, and customers through its technology, announced a new agreement with Life Time, the nation's premier healthy lifestyle brand. Advanta's ActiveFit+ members will now have access to thousands of livestreamed and on-demand fitness classes and programs through the Life Time Digital app membership. This announcement follows the recent unveiling of Advanta's new personalized movement solutions to improve musculoskeletal health.
• Science 37 Holdings announced its partnership with the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) in support of the CancerX inaugural project. Answering the call of the White House, Science 37 will join DiMe and Moffitt Cancer Center as part of CancerX, a new public-private partnership effort to rapidly accelerate the pace of cancer innovation in the U.S., alongside the Office for the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health.
• Solera Health, a platform for connecting people seamlessly and easily to health solutions that work, announced a multi-year strategic partnership with Horizon Healthcare Services, New Jersey’s largest health insurer with more than 3.6 million members. Through this strategic partnership, Solera will provide its technology platform to connect Horizon members to a personalized experience of innovative and effective curated networks of digital point solution programs to manage their health. The partnership will launch by initially offering Musculoskeletal, Stress, Sleep, & Resilience, Tobacco Cessation, and Weight Management programs, all through value-based payments focused on driving clinical outcomes.
• Verizon Public Sector expanded its existing partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers and health care facilities. As part of the new $448.3 million, nine-year agreement, Verizon will supply mobile devices and, through Verizon Frontline, mission-critical communications support during the VA’s disaster recovery missions and other emergencies. Specifically, the agreement allows the VA to purchase devices and services for community-based outpatient clinics, field and program offices and remote users in the U.S. Verizon can now also support the VA’s broader network objectives, such as wider adoption of Mobile Edge Compute and Software-Defined Wide-Area Networks technology.
• Propel America and The College of Health Care Professions announced a new partnership to help young adults earn in-demand healthcare credentials, in turn unlocking new opportunities for economic mobility and generational financial stability. As part of this new hybrid training program, students will complete online medical assisting classes and in-person skills lab experiences without needing to take on debt for education expenses.
• Health and wellness app, MedWorks announced a partnership with MCI The Doctor's Office clinics that enhances patient access to curated care. The collaboration makes patient-facing services and packaged corporate health services available to Canadians via the convenient user experience of MedWorks' centralized, remotely accessible hub.
• Reliq Health Technologies, a company developing virtual care solutions for the healthcare market, signed five new contracts with physician practices and home health agencies in Arkansas, California, Nevada and Texas. These new contracts are expected to add more than 3,000 new patients to Reliq’s iUGO Care platform by the end of 2023 and generate an average revenue of $65 monthly per patient at an expected 75% gross margin. All five clients will be using the iUGO Care Remote Patient Monitoring, Chronic Care Management, and Behavioural Health Integration modules.
• Endonovo Therapeutics, s biotechnology developer, announced the launch of SofPulse with Academy Medical, a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Government Reseller. As was previously announced, Academy Medical will be reselling SofPulse medical devices to the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) healthcare facilities, thereby ensuring its availability to the country’s military, veterans and their families. This sales launch meeting marks the beginning of the partnership between Endonovo and Academy Medical. The partnership is expected to benefit military personnel, veterans and their families who are among the largest user groups of these healthcare delivery systems.
• Casana announced that it received FDA clearance for its Heart Seat — a smart toilet seat that measures certain vital signs. Heart Seat measures heart rate and oxygen saturation (SpO2). Casana also has partnerships with researchers to conduct validation studies for further clinical measurements. The company plans to file for future indications this year, including systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Casana aims to initiate the market launch for Heart Seat by the end of 2023.
• Tufts Medicine selected meQuilibrium to support the mental well-being of its employees within its health system, including Tufts Medical Center, Lowell General Hospital, MelroseWakefield Hospital, Lawrence Memorial Hospital of Medford, Care at Home, and its integrated physician network. Tufts Medicine health system employees can now access meQuilibrium to navigate challenges and build their adaptive capacity, resilience and agility.
• CoverSelf, a company specializing in next-gen, cloud-native, open & customizable claims accuracy platform with an integrated & customizable workflow and data warehouse, and Paytegrity, a Payment Integrity ideation company with a library of customizable detection solutions, designed to support Payors with in-house deployment of prepayment algorithms announced that they have formed a strategic partnership to offer next gen overpayment detection to Health Plans and Partners. The combined offering of thousands of rules coupled with a very powerful automated configurable & highly scalable engine is designed to process claims in real-time to identify overpayments and drive greater cost avoidance, savings and enhance Payor profitability. The two companies developed concepts in compliance with CMS coverage / billing requirements including National and Local Coverage guidelines, Medicaid, and across the entire spectrum of claim types which are customizable to Payor specific policies. The Platform is designed for truly insourcing PI process for Payors, so that it can manage PI ideation, concepts execution to recovery, collaboration via audit workflow and visibility through real-time reports. The engine incorporates edits and complex algorithms that support Clinical and Coding Review. The engine can be deployed as a cloud-based SaaS solution or based on customer needs it can also be deployed within the customer’s cloud or on-premises IT infrastructure.
• TranspareRx Corporation, a healthcare technology company that developed the next-generation prescription savings platform Cuverd, announced its partnership with HUB International Limited (HUB), a leading global insurance brokerage and financial services firm, to bring needed relief to HUB health benefit clients and their employees by addressing prescription costs to help improve affordability, adherence and health outcomes.
• Guardian Research Network announced that The MetroHealth System, a multi-hospital safety-net health system serving more than 300,000 Ohio patients, has joined its nationwide healthcare research consortium. This partnership will augment MetroHealth's efforts to become the national leader in translational innovations and discoveries that can improve the health and wealth for all members of the community. Through this strategic collaboration, GRN will continue to leverage real world data analytics to strengthen community health initiatives around the country.
• FULLFILL and Lambent Data joined forces to introduce a technology service aimed at improving the health and well-being of millions of people across the United States. The two companies have executed a strategic partnership agreement to enhance adoption, retention, and outcomes for participants in wellness and health programs.
• The South Dakota Department of Health, in partnership with STChealth, announced the launch of its new Immunization Information System, a provider of health information technology solutions. The new system will improve immunization reporting and coverage throughout the state, making the lives of public health officials, immunization providers, and local communities easier.
• Synchrony, a provider of consumer payments and financing solutions, announced a partnership with CoFi, a unique technology provider in the vision industry and leading multi-party patient payment platform. Through this partnership, Synchrony's CareCredit payment solution will now be integrated into the platform for the more than 2,000 ophthalmologists, optometrists, and surgery centers on CoFi's network, allowing patients the ability to use a CareCredit credit card to finance their consolidated care costs.
• HealthMe and the Kansas City Orthopedic Alliance announced they have partnered to provide HealthMe's price transparency platform to help direct-pay patients access healthcare for an upfront, bundled price. Healthcare services available to direct payers include office visits, procedures and imaging studies via a digital marketplace and payment tool that mirrors the shopping experience seen in every other industry. Announced at the Free Market Medical Association conference in Kansas City, the partnership aligns with FMMA's rapidly growing community of physicians, self-funded employers, and others with a shared goal of promoting direct care models built on transparency, affordability, access and a better physician and patient experience.
• ObvioHealth, a virtual research organization, announced a partnership with A*STAR's Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences to identify better and more sensitive ways to measure and capture health outcomes. A*STAR's SICS aims to identify biomarkers and associated treatments that can help populations manage subclinical symptoms more effectively. The first project within this collaboration will be to study subclinical mood disturbances in the general population. The project seeks to identify new digital biomarkers of depressive and anxious feelings, as well as stress, that can be measured and applied in real life settings. Under the agreement, ObvioHealth will provide scientific input into study design as well as access to its ObvioGo platform for the management of participant data.
• Lynx.MD, a medical data intelligence platform, announced a new partnership with Prometheus Laboratories and Gastro Health to securely unite real-world clinical data for retrospective analysis of inflammatory bowel disease biologic treatment. The partnership will bring together 10-years of de-identified IBD clinical laboratory data and patient data, using the Lynx Trusted Data Environment, to research and demonstrate the value of the Prometheus Anser IFX therapeutic drug monitoring test to improve patient clinical outcomes and reduce overall healthcare costs in IBD patient management.
• Recora, a virtual cardiac recovery company, and Nevada Heart and Vascular Center, the largest cardiovascular provider in Southern Nevada, announced a partnership to launch virtual cardiac rehabilitation for heart disease patients. The program expands services offered by Nevada Heart and Vascular by providing a home-based solution for patients to recover.
• Sacred Heart University and Hartford HealthCare announced a comprehensive agreement to collaborate on and expand upon a wide variety of clinical training and development activities—launching a new scholarship, a medical certificate program while augmenting instructional and placement opportunities. Both organizations will benefit—as the agreement better supports SHU nursing and health professions students, while building an important pipeline for Hartford HealthCare in an era of well-known workplace shortages in health care, in Connecticut and across the country.
• ValGenesis, an enterprise Validation Lifecycle Management Systems company, and MEPHARMA, a strategic regulatory consulting services company, partnered to provide a range of regulatory intelligence, compliance, and validation and automation solutions for companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Middle East and North Africa.
• Formus Labs announced it received 510(k) clearance from the United States Food and Drug Administration for Formus Hip as the first “automated radiological image processing software” for hip replacement pre-op planning. The New Zealand-founded company previously announced its intent to expand to the US and this announcement signifies Formus has cleared the last major hurdle before it can start making its solution widely available to surgeons and healthcare providers.
• Modern Meadow, a purpose-driven biotechnology company, announced a partnership with Evonik, a leader in specialty ingredients for the beauty and personal care industry, to create sustainable, clean beauty products that are high-quality and animal-free. The partnership combines Modern Meadow's innovative Bio-Coll@gen™ fermentation-based technology with Evonik's expertise and global reach in beauty and personal care ingredients to provide the availability of new formulations and enhance existing products.
• Aldevron, a manufacturer of DNA, RNA and proteins used in cell and gene therapies and vaccine development, will expand its mRNA production capabilities to include lipid nanoparticle encapsulation and aseptic fill-finish capabilities enabling mRNA cGMP manufacturing services from Master Cell Bank through to Drug Product. This new capability will support the production of therapeutic-scale clinical and commercial-stage mRNA therapies for cancers and genetic diseases, and clinical-stage vaccines for infectious diseases.
• ImaginAb Inc., a global biotechnology company developing 89Zr crefmirlimab berdoxam (CD8 ImmunoPET) imaging agent and radiopharmaceutical therapies, and Quibim, a global company born with the ambition of transforming imaging data into actionable predictions, announced their new collaboration. Together, the two partners aim to revolutionize immunotherapy treatment planning by combining ImaginAb's investigational CD8 ImmunoPET technology with Quibim's cutting-edge image processing technology.
• MaxCyte, a cell-engineering focused company providing enabling platform technologies to advance the discovery, development and commercialization of next-generation cell-based therapeutics and to support innovative, cell-based research, announced the signing of a strategic platform license with Walking Fish Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that is rapidly advancing B cell-based therapeutics. Under the terms of the agreement, Walking Fish obtains non-exclusive clinical and commercial rights to use MaxCyte’s Flow Electroporation technology and ExPERT platform. In return, MaxCyte is entitled to receive platform licensing fees, clinical milestone payments and sales-based payments.
• Springfield Technical Community College and Elms College partnered to create an affordable and seamless pathway for students to transfer into the biology program at elms. Students who earn their associate degree in engineering and physical science transfer (biology transfer) from STCC can enroll at Elms as a biology major to seek a bachelor’s degree, according to the terms of an articulation agreement. The collaboration between the two institutions allows students who earn their bachelor’s degree and meet GPA requirements to enroll in the master’s-degree program.
• Florida Atlantic University and Insightec, a global health care company, announced a partnership. This agreement will enable FAU and Insightec to collaborate to advance scientific knowledge about the use of focused ultrasound to treat brain diseases, including Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.
• US Heart & Vascular, a national provider of support services to cardiovascular physician practices, announced that it has entered into an agreement with Rubicon Founders, a healthcare investment firm, to expand USHV’s capabilities and build the premier, cardiovascular focused, value-based model in the United States.
• Isaac Health, a brain health provider and health technology company, and Troy Medicare, a regional Medicare Advantage plan, joined forces in an innovative partnership to address the growing challenge of brain health conditions in the Medicare population. Since December 2022, Isaac Health has been using its proprietary detection algorithms and data provided by MDPortals to screen Troy Medicare members at risk for Alzheimer’s disease and other brain health conditions. Isaac Health reached out to members flagged with an elevated risk and invited them for a brain health check-up, including further screening, medical assessment, and treatment as part of Isaac Health's comprehensive brain health management program.
• Iron Path Capital, a private equity firm focused on building differentiated businesses in the healthcare and specialty industrials sectors, announced that Capitol Pain Institute  is entering the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan market via the acquisition of Nura Pain Clinics (Nura). This partnership expands CPI’s network of clinics and ambulatory surgical centers in the Midwest, strengthening the ability to provide exceptional care to patients with chronic pain in the region. CPI’s expansion to Minnesota marks the company’s sixth state in its national platform. CPI currently operates in Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Texas.
• AIIMS New Delhi and India Medtronic Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Medtronic plc, announced the opening of a state-of-the-art surgical robotics training center at AIIMS, New Delhi. The center will provide surgeons with best-in-class training in robotic-assisted surgery. It is the first such center at AIIMS utilizing Medtronic's HugoTM robotic-assisted surgery system, which was first introduced in India in September 2021. The new training partnership was announced in the presence of Dr. Minu Bajpai, HOD Paediatric Surgery and Dean Academics, AIIMS and Michael Blackwell, Vice President & Managing Director, Medtronic India. The partnership brings together novel technology and decades of surgical expertise to train surgeons nationwide and expand access to the benefits of RAS.
• H2O.ai, an AI Cloud company, announced a strategic partnership with Nippon Life Insurance Company, also known as Nissay in Japan. Specifically, the companies are announcing a partnership where Nippon Life Insurance Company will deploy H2O Driverless AI tools to better meet the needs of their policyholders, improve financial soundness of corporate health insurance unions and support health promotion and disease prevention.
• Nexa Healthcare partnered with NexHealth to offer solutions for healthcare providers looking to supplement their digital booking software with a live, 24-hour answering service to generate higher patient satisfaction scores, improve patient access and increase revenue. The partnership allows providers to convert phone calls into booked appointments within three rings, ensuring that patients always receive prompt and professional service. Custom scripting and custom reporting are also available, allowing providers to tailor the service to their specific needs.
• MedWand Solutions announced that it recently became a PointClickCare Marketplace Program Partner and completed a technical integration that will allow nurses and providers to access MedWand's comprehensive VirtualCare telemedicine platform using their PointClickCare credentials, increasing staffing efficiency, empowering providers, and improving access to quality healthcare.
• Edan Instruments, a healthcare company and medical devices manufacturer, announced its integration with PointClickCare through its newly launched informatics solutions Allink. The solution is now available on PointCareClick Marketplace, aiming to provide an efficient healthcare workflow that is far less labor-intensive and could free the caregivers for better patient care.
• Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency, said the World Health Organization. WHO’s International Health Regulations Emergency Committee discussed the pandemic on Thursday at its 15th meeting on Covid-19, and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus concurred that the public health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC, declaration should end. The organization declared the coronavirus outbreak to be a public health emergency of international concern in January 2020, about six weeks before characterizing it as a pandemic.

M&A

• Bonatra, a platform for managing chronic health conditions, acquired MyAva, a women’s health and wellness company
• Enovis, a medical technology growth company, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the SEAL external fixation product line from D.N.E.
• CVS Health completed its acquisition of primary care provider Oak Street Health
• Medical Specialists of the Palm Beaches, a primary care-focused, multi-specialty physician group practice in South Florida, acquired Cohen Medical Associates, a primary care practice
• Sagility, a provider of technology-enabled business process management services, acquired Devlin Consulting, a healthcare technology services company providing payment integrity services
• Astellas Pharma, a Japanese multinational pharmaceutical company, acquired IVERIC Bio, a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of treatments for retinal diseases
• Option Care Health, an infusion company, acquired Amedisys, a home health company into a subsidiary
• CommonSpirit Health completed its acquisition of five Utah-based hospitals
• SunMed, a manufacturer and distributor of consumable medical devices for anesthesia and respiratory care, completed its acquisition of Vyaire Medical’s business unit that manufactures and markets respiratory and anesthesia consumables
• Thriwe, a technology-driven consumer benefits marketplace, acquired digital health and financial wellness platform UCare Health
• Zimmer Biomet Holdings, a global medical technology company, reached a definitive agreement to acquire OSSIS, a medical device company that specializes in personalized 3D printed implants, as well as complex hip replacements
• Montecito Medical, an acquirer of medical office properties nationwide, completed its acquisition of a 15,000-square-foot medical building in Cincinnati, Ohio
• Holland & Barrett, a health and wellness retailer, acquired start-up FitTech company, Avie
• HouseWorks, a provider of personal care services across the Northeast, acquired Care and Help Home Care, a home care provider 
• Henry Schein, a provider of health care products and services to office-based dental and medical practitioners, agreed to acquire S.I.N. Implant System, a Brazilian manufacturer of dental implants
• Stryker, a medical technology company, completed its acquisition of Cerus Endovascular, a commercial-stage, medical device company engaged in the design and development of neurointerventional devices for the treatment of intracranial aneurysms
• Agilio Software, a provider of healthcare operations technology, acquired automated data solutions supplier CARAGON
• Graham Family Office, a private equity firm, merged with outpatient behavioral health provider Quince Orchard Psychotherapy

Funding Roundup 

• Inbox Health, a patient billing platform, raised $22.5 million
• Kindbody, a provider of fertility clinics and technology, raised $25 million
• Magenta Medical, developer of the world's smallest heart pump, raised $55 million
• Healthy.io, a company transforming the smartphone camera into a clinical-grade device, raised $50 million
• Autonomize AI, an AI company for healthcare and life sciences, raised $4 million
• Hygieia, a digital therapeutics company for insulin therapy, raised $22 million
• Uwill, a mental health and wellness solution for colleges and students, raised $30 million
• Surgical Safety Technologies, a medical technology company that engineered the OR Black Box platform for hospitals, raised $15 million
• MultiOmic Health, an AI-enabled drug discovery company, raised £5 million
• THB (Technology l Healthcare l Big Data Analytics), an enterprise healthcare SaaS company, raised $20 million
• Domo Health, provider of a digital health platform that connects patients to their local care environment, raised CHF 8.5 million in funding
• Biolytica, a longevity startup, raised $5.8 million
• Convergent Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the development of next-generation radiopharmaceuticals for the treatment of cancer, raised $90 million
• Augment Therapy, a developer of technology to improve the delivery of pediatric physical therapy, raised $1 million
• Tidepool, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization empowering the next generation of diabetes innovation, raised an undisclosed amount of funding
• ODAIA, a life science commercialization technology company, raised $25 million
• OnKai, an AI-powered digital platform that facilitates health equity in underserved communities across the US, raised $6 million
• Essenvia, a provider of regulatory submission management for the MedTech industry, raised $4 million

(Image source: usu.edu)