‍Highlights & Summary

In this quarter’s round up, we saw digital health funding fall following last year’s boom. Despite a drop in funding, the space was still rife with regulatory approvals, partnerships and innovation from numerous key players. While the economic slump looks as though it may continue through the final quarter of 2022,  we will continue to stay abreast of emerging developments in digital health. 

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Overarching Industry Updates

1 | Report: Digital health funding falls after booming 2021

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AI / Imaging

1 | Viz.ai receives FDA clearance for pulmonary embolism triaging algorithm 

2 | Bot Image receives FDA clearance for prostate cancer detection and diagnosis software

3 | Novo Nordisk partners with Microsoft to accelerate drug discovery and development pipeline

4 | Lunit receives approvals from Health Canada and partners with Cathay Life Insurance 

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Disease Management / Digital Therapeutics

1 | Healthy.io Receives Landmark FDA Clearance For First And Only Smartphone-Powered Home Kidney Test

2 | Tasso earns FDA clearance for its home blood collection device for telehealth tests

3 | Alphabet's Verily raises $1B to expand precision health business

4 | Headspace doubles down on personalized mental health care, snaps up BIPOC-focused Shine 

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Informatics / Healthcare IT Solutions

1 | Northwell and Google Cloud partner to automate workflows, identify health risk factors

2 | Amazon scoops up primary care company One Medical in deal valued at $3.9B

3 | Google adds Medicaid, Medicare enrollment info to Search

4 | DiMe releases toolkits to help scale wearables, remote patient monitoring

5 | Healthcare automation company Olive lays off around 450 workers

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Overarching Industry Updates

1 | Report: Digital health funding falls after booming 2021

A recent report from Rock Health dives into trends in digital health funding. Findings show that although 2022 funding is anticipated to fall short of 2021 funding ($10.2B in first half of 2022, down from $15B the same period last year), total funding this year is still on track to beat the 2020 baseline. Numbers indicate that 2021 may have been an unexpected boom. Average deal sizes for Series C and Series D+ checks are also down by 22% and 12%, respectively, compared to 2021. The highest-funded clinical areas are digital mental health ($1.3B in funding in H1 2022), followed by oncology ($800M). 

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AI / Imaging

1 | Viz.ai receives FDA clearance for pulmonary embolism triaging algorithm 

Viz.ai received its third 510(k) clearance this year for its AI algorithm detecting the severity of a pulmonary embolism. This algorithm will be added to their Viz PE module to allow for the detection of a pulmonary embolism as well as right ventricular dysfunction. Their new algorithm detects the ratio between the diameter of the right ventricle and the left ventricle (RV/LV) ratio in order to determine the degree of strain on the right ventricle, allowing physicians to triage patients appearing with pulmonary embolisms. Viz.ai raised $100 million in Series D funding earlier this year to add triaging capabilities to its various platforms. 

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2 | Bot Image receives FDA clearance for prostate cancer detection and diagnosis software

Bot Image received 510(k) clearance for the ProstatID, an AI-driven prostate cancer detection and diagnosis software. The ProstatID uses T2 MRI images to highlight suspicious lesions in the prostate gland that could be harboring tumor cells. Bot Image plans to release the ProstatID using the SaaS model, where providers will upload the patients MRI scans to Bot Image’s cloud servers and receive an AI-generated report. This model aims to reduce the technical barrier to adoption with the entire IT setup process taking less than an hour to complete. 

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3 | Novo Nordisk partners with Microsoft to accelerate drug discovery and development pipeline

Novo Nordisk partnered with Microsoft, continuing the trend of big pharma-big tech collaborations. The partnership will follow the platform approach model to develop widely-applicable AI models. The partnership highlights two initial projects: data compilation and atherosclerosis. Novo Nordisk will utilize Microsoft’s AI to peruse and summarize large amounts of scientific literature, patents, reports, and discussion forums to drive new findings. Additionally, they will be developing an atherosclerosis algorithm to detect risk, identify biomarkers, and isolate drug targets.

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4 | Lunit receives approvals from Health Canada and partners with Cathay Life Insurance 

Recently IPO’d firm Lunit has been making big waves in Q3. Lunit’s AI-driven radiology solution line, INSIGHT CXR (chest X-ray) and MMG (mammography), has obtained approval for commercial release in Canada following their FDA approvals last year. Additionally, Lunit has partnered with Cathay Life Insurance to streamline their review of chest X-rays. The life insurance underwriter currently reviews over 30,000 chest x-rays annually and the new partnership will improve the reading accuracy and drastically reduce the reading time. To learn more about Lunit’s oncology solutions, click here. 

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Disease Management / Digital Therapeutics

1 | Healthy.io Receives Landmark FDA Clearance For First And Only Smartphone-Powered Home Kidney Test

The Minuteful Kidney™ test, developed by Healthy.io, has received 510(k) clearance to determine albumin to creatinine ratio through the utilization of a smartphone app to conduct a urine test. The identification of albumin in urine can allow for early detection of chronic kidney disease (CKD). With 75 million Americans at risk for CKD and only 20% completing their annual test, the clearance of a user friendly, at home product could drastically improve testing adherence and decrease rates of dialysis in America.

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2 | Tasso earns FDA clearance for its home blood collection device for telehealth tests

Tasso has received FDA Class II medical device clearance for its sample collection device. This device is intended to drive decentralization of clinical trials as it allows for quick and easy home blood tests. The development of a clinical-grade home blood collection kit is expected to help enable more remote clinical studies. This device will be sold to pharma companies, healthcare organizations, and academic centers by the end of 2022. 

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3 | Alphabet's Verily raises $1B to expand precision health business

Verily, the life science branch of Alphabet, has announced that they have raised $1 billion in an investment round, led by Alphabet.  In addition, they have announced movement within the executive team including that the founder, Andy Conrad, is set to step down as CEO in 2023, and that current president Stephen Gillett is now in place to take the position. Verily’s initiatives include their clinical trial platform (Project Baseline), a chronic condition management tool (Ondup), the Verily Value Suite for health system analytics, and the Immune Profiler for drug discovery.

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4 | Headspace doubles down on personalized mental health care, snaps up BIPOC-focused Shine 

Headspace Health acquired Shine, a wellness app. This acquisition will help Headspace Health enlarge their user base by helping target people of color, women and the LGBTQIA+ community. Shine’s leadership team will continue to contribute to Headspace Health through product and marketing teams. This acquisition is just one of many consolidations in the digital mental health company.

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Informatics / Healthcare IT Solutions

1 | Northwell and Google Cloud partner to automate workflows, identify health risk factors

Northwell Health is partnering with Google Cloud to leverage Google’s technology to automate administrative workflows and identify patient risk factors for intervention. This collaboration will allow for automated payer contact, summarization of a patient’s medical information, identify risk factors among a given population, and predict future capacity. These features will be powered by both Google’s cloud technology and AI. This digital health partnership further cements Northwell’s interest in technology and Google’s interest in healthcare.

2 | Amazon scoops up primary care company One Medical in deal valued at $3.9B

Amazon has announced their plan to acquire concierge health service, One Medical for a deal totaling around $3.9 billion. This equates to roughly $18 per share, up from One Medical’s IPO price of $14. The acquisition is expected to further insert Amazon into the healthcare space and emphasizes their goal of “reimagining” the care landscape, according to Neil Lindsay, SVP of Amazon Health Services.

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3 | Google adds Medicaid, Medicare enrollment info to Search

Google has unveiled several health-related updates to their products including the addition of Medicaid and Medicare information in Search. Users will be able to see requirements for eligibility and how to enroll when they search for these health plans. Those currently covered will also have the option to filter providers who accept their plan. In addition, Youtube has partnered with the Kaiser Family Foundation to launch THE-IQ with the goal of aiding organizations in the creation of informational health videos. 

4 | DiMe releases toolkits to help scale wearables, remote patient monitoring

The Digital Medicine Society (DiME) has unveiled four toolkits that support healthcare organizations in using data from sensors and remote patient monitoring systems. The toolkits are based on the society’s Sensor Data Integrations project which includes organizations across technology and healthcare. DiME has outlined that a logical clinical workflow is required for sensor data to be used effectively. In the larger landscape, further enabling remote patient monitoring can help alleviate existing medical staff shortages and increase access to care.

5 | Healthcare automation company Olive lays off around 450 workers

Olive, a healthcare automation startup, has announced layoffs of roughly 450 workers, a large portion of their total workforce. The CEO, Sean Lane, cited the “realities of today’s economy” as the key impetus for laying off workers. These layoffs come roughly a year after Olive had achieved a funding round of $400 million and a subsequent valuation of $4 billion. Olive’s focus remains on their Autonomous Revenue Cycle product for providers and the Utilization Management Transformation tool for payers. Other digital health companies have also announced layoffs indicating the greater economic pressures on this industry.

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