#22 🍩 What the Health - Aus's First Crowd-Backed Healthtech Fund, Gov Grants Rain & Health Defector Pains

Your fortnightly healthtech TL;DR roundup

Emily Casey

Mar 28, 2022

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Noteworthy 🗞️

So this year’s predictions are starting to come true at a rapid rate…

With specific funds, health defectors, and crowdfunding all popping up. Whilst health insurers are slowly making moves, and endless micro-credentials & grants too

Aussie Funding Fun

🚀 Theres a new healthtech VC in town

Venture Crowd launched Aus’s first crowd-backed Healthtech Fund - focused on funding early-stage FoodTech, MedTech, BioTech & Digital Health

In their words…
”Investors will gain passive exposure to a diversified portfolio of companies as well as have first access to increase their exposure to particular companies through the VentureCrowd platform as the companies gain traction.
They also partnered with LuminaX Health Accelerator, investing in their cohort & Uniseed to tap into companies commercialising IP from UQ, USYD, UNSW, the UoM and the CSIRO”

💰UniSuper is making its first big leap into VC also funnelling $75m into Uniseed

🧪 Steve Diggle (investor in Rosemary Health) plans to launch $1.79b Biotech fund for new Aussie and UK investments

💸 Medibank Private took a $10m stake in telehealth app Medinet

🧠 Epiminder, an Epilepsy monitoring device, raised $16m from existing shareholders to expand clinical trials

💦 Hills revives Extensia, quietly buying a majority share in the dormant company as shifts focus to healthtech

🤰Oli got backed by the Alberts family, on their mission to resolve trauma for all mothers. Their solution provides data previously been unavailable to practitioners to predict time to birth, detect hemorrhages and other significant findings before they occur to help respond safely. And is being FDA fast-tracked

🎉 Latest round of cool projects funded by the Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) Grants was announced:

Denteric - $1.2m to develop an mRNA vaccine for a chronic human bacterial infection
QHeart Medical - $2.75m for sn interventional “pumpless” intra-aortic balloon heart assist device as a non-surgical intervention for Resistant Hypertension and Hypertensive Heart Failure
Bridgewest Australia Biotech - $3m for an mRNA manufacturing and formulation service for late-stage clinical trials
Oncores Medical - $3m to commercialise a diagnostic imaging system for cancer surgery
Vlepis Solutions & - $1.48m for sensor and data innovation to smart triage at-risk Australians
Cannapacific & CSIRO - $3m for cannabinoid manufacturing & research to develop registered pharmaceuticals

Worth Knowing

📱We could soon be testing for COVID-19 with an app with ResApp's trials detecting the virus in 92% of cases

🧬 The gov is establishing a national agency to advance genomic medicine, Genomics Australia, ft $28.1m to open in 2024 to help its integration into mainstream healthcare

Illumina chimed in too on why they’re keen on creating, launching and growing genomics startups in Aus

🏦 CBA launched the first payment terminal capable of processing private health insurance and Medicare claims and settling payments all in one place

🚺 The gov announced $58m to set up Endometriosis and Pelvic Pain Clinics in each state ft medicare-rebated care and a revamp of care for the condition

🛑 Digital Health companies say the gov stifles innovation in a new report from The Medical Software Industry Association

⚠️ Australia apparently lost its appetite for risk-taking and this potentially explains our lagging tech exportation and innovation

🤝 Johnson & Johnson joins forces with Max Kelsen to use AI to speed up the supply of surgical instruments to hospitals, to help the backlog of surgeries from COVID

✈️ Swoop Aero partners with BD Rowa Germany, and Skyports, to drive more value (and expansion) in the pharma and medical supply industries globally

💊 StrongRoom AI is on a growth spurt merging with EasyDose to further their mission of making medication supply safer and move into WA

US & Beyond the Borders

🍄Johns Hopkins, Yale, and NYU are teaming up to tackle a big problem for psychedelics as they come to market: the lack of trained professionals

🐣 Contraline has been awarded “Best Innovation” at Reproductive Health Innovation Summit for its world-first implant designed to provide non-hormonal, long-lasting and non-permanent contraception for men (Can we get a hallelujah)

🎮 XRHealth snagged US$10m to Expand Virtual Reality Healthcare Treatment in the Metaverse

🇬🇧 The UK launched its first digital health training program for NHS frontline staff to help with the uptake of digital tools (When Australia?)

🔮 Elsevier Health released a comprehensive Clinician of the Future: a 2022 report

This global report reveals clinicians' pain points, predictions for the future and how the industry can come together to address gaps,
Great vision - but basically, we need a hell of a lot of upgrades and changes to get there

🚨 Healthcare defectors could also be a very real reality with 1 in 3 clinicians considering leaving their role by 2024