#30 🍩 What the Health - Drones take QLD skies, The WHO has AI & Biotech is a vibe

Your fortnightly healthtech TL;DR roundup

Oct 12, 2022

Well, looks like AI is popular. Or Pizza. Our cute collab with Harrison.ai selling out in <24 hours. Bravo my beautiful health tech nerds *tear*.

But, we just released a few more - so if you’re in Sydney on Oct 27th and keen, make sure you snag a spot 🎉 🙌

💜 Thanks to everyone who came to our fab Melbourne event last week! Ft. our sponsor The Medtech Actuator.

People pretending to have fun. Great acting skills

And sorry to those who didn’t get to come. With >170 people applying, we’ve decided to strictly cap numbers for events. To make sure we keep the vibe, and can like, actually provide.

PS - Shameless plug, if you’re keen to sponsor future events or want to get your brand in front of >3136 Aussie healthtech-loving legends 😎 Hit. Us. Up.

Exact depiction of the vibes we aiming for

Did we miss something? Want something included next time?
💌 emily@whatthehealth.io

💼 Jobs, Jobs, Featured Jobs

🧬 Heidi Health - Are on a mission to eliminate missed diagnoses, and is helping practices go hybrid with AI-powered beautiful software.

They have a SICK opportunity for a medical student or doctor to lead their Medical Knowledge Engineering (MKE) as Medical Knowledge Lead. This can be for a year stint away from clinical medicine or indefinitely, but a killer chance to learn about the intersection of AI, business, tech and startups.
🧠 DBS Tech - is developing advanced techniques to harness unique brain signals to improve therapies for neurological disorders. And are seeking an Electronics Hardware Development Engineer - as they rapidly expand to take on electronics design, building and testing in support of ongoing clinical trials.

Check out the jobs board!

Keen to be featured? Post your roles here!

Noteworthy 🗞️

Aussie (& NZ) Funding Fun

🤵‍♂️ Sonder, a corporate workplace wellness startup, closed $35m with UK expansion plans in sight

👚 T-Shirt Ventures, the NDIS tech startup/studio, is adding former Ramsay CEO Chris Rex as its chair following an $11m Series A

⌚️GVDP, raised $2.9m to roll out their wearable devices to allow disabled and vulnerable people to share data with first responders across the US

🤖 Calumino, the developer of next-gen thermal sensor tech and AI, announced a US$10.3M Series A

💉Vaxxas got a $8.2m gov grant for manufacturing scale-up of its tech that should enable vaccines to be applied via skin using a small patch

🫁 OccuRx raised $16m to fund clinical studies for its oral therapy to treat chronic kidney disease (CKD)

📱Foodini, an app that helps diners find restaurants ft. dietary needs, snagged $700k

♟ NIB is making moves into the NDIS space, acquiring Maple Plan

🌱 Vitable, the vitamin subscription biz is raising again

📊 CurveBeam AI, a bone fragility imaging tech company is hunting for $15m pre IPO

👀 GenesisCare has investors & banks keeping a close eye as it looks like it could be in some financial pain

💊 InstantScripts, the online medical prescription biz is hunting for new owners - targeting a $200m sale

🍬Aucentra Therapeutics, a clinical phase cancer biotech is hunting for up to $50m, doubling its latest round supposedly due to interest in its pipeline of drug candidates for hard-to-treat cancers

Worth Knowing

Stuart Blitz @StuartBlitz

Health tech founder who finally converts a health insurance pilot to a commercial contract

✈️ Swoop Aero & Mater Group partnered to take healthcare to the skies in QLD - enabling pathology collection, results and medical deliveries across more parts of the state via drone

🔥 NHMRC leads the way in open access to research - now mandating for all scholarly work it funds to be available as soon as it’s published

🧬 The Garvan Institute of Medical Research got $10m grant from the gov to improve the diversity of Australian genomic data

“Today the majority (~70%) of genomic data available is of Caucasian descent. With equitable representation, therapies and solutions can be attuned to a broader set of genomes, therefore decreasing an inherent bias for the medicines of the future”

Heres freaking hoping

🔥Peter Mac and Pfizer are teaming up to tackle research to better understand how T-cells work and how they can use this to fight cancer

🥲 More women than ever are entering STEM, but there’s still a GIANT issue with pay gaps and positions of seniority *shock*

✅ Seer Medical surges ahead receiving FDA Clearance for its Epilepsy Monitoring Tech in the US

🇮🇳AirPhysio, an Aussie hand-held respiratory devices that help people with limited lung capacity clear their lungs and improve breathing, expands in India

🏆 Nuroflux, the Stroke detection medtech that monitors blood flow of the brain following strokes, won Fishburners “Tech for Good” awards

🔮Vast Biotech, A Brissy biotech is modernising pain management with 3D Drug discovery tech to hopefully create new classes of more effective, and safe drugs

Biotech in Aus has always been a sleeping giant, now investments are a hot topic and slowly coming of age….

The Australian released its Investor Guide: Health & Biotech FY2023
3 new Biotechs hit the ASX300

🫀Anteris Technology has high hopes for being the next big thing after developing a unique heart valve the DurAVR, a contender in the race to create a human-like valve replacement

🥇Leah Heiss was named the Australian women in design winner at the Good Design Awards for her epic work across wearable health tech and healthcare co-design

Government Goss

❌ NPS Medicinewise will be no more ending a 24-year stint

🏥 Vic is building a second Royal Melbourne hospital - and another Royal Women's ft. redevelopments of the old ones

💵 Regional MedTech gets a boost with a grant for a $260k partnership between Uni Melb and Bendigo Health for innovation development

🌇 Oncoshot, the Singaporean healthtech leader connecting cancer patients, hospitals and industry in real-time will establish its Aussie headquarters in Melbs

👷 Stryker, a global leader in medical tech has opened a new R&D lab for innovative medical technology in QLD to help accelerate the translation of research

US & Beyond the Borders

🌍 Well well well - a pharma working with a tech giant?

Novo Nordisk has partnered with Microsoft to expedite the discovery and development of drugs leveraging big data and artificial intelligence

🐣 GE Healthcare breaks off from the conglomerate to go it alone

🤑Alphabet’s (Google) Verily raised US$1bn to expand its data-driven healthcare products for individuals

👩‍⚕️In what’s sure to be just the begging of helpful AI in healthtech going mainstream…
The WHO launched the AI-powered WHO Digital Health Worker, Florence v2.0, offering an interactive platform to share health topics and advice in 7 languages

Sick Science…

🌈 Scientists have developed tattoos that change colour in response to glucose, albumin, and pH levels. The new tech could let people with diabetes or kidney disease track and control their health without having to take frequent blood samples

Basic tattoos have a new meaning. Source

🔐 Health apps are sharing your health concerns with advertisers, to capitalise and HIPAA can’t do nothing

☀️ The switch to LEDs - whilst great for the environment, might be messing our hormone health, with scientists suggesting it’s screwing up melatonin regulation

🥳 A new CAR T-cell treatment study saw lupus sent into remission and brings hope it could help other autoimmune diseases

🦾 Elon Musk unveils humanoid ‘Optimus’ robot - In a bid to diversify its portfolio besides automobiles

Elon Musk @elonmusk

Startup Stuff 🚀

Startup creating an impact in Vic?

Apply to pitch at Startup Vic and Giant Leap’s pitch night - shining a spotlight on the founders who are building businesses that are changing the world for the better. Ft. a heap of goodies up for grabs - More here

Innovating in the healthy aging space?

Johnson & Johnson Innovation is launching the Japan Smart Healthy Aging QuickFire Challenge for promising science or technologies aiming to increase healthy life expectancy. With expert mentoring, up to $300k in prizes and help with market entry up for grabs - More here

Want to know the essentials to set your healthtech up for success?

Cicada’s 3 day Business Fundamentals course shares practical advice and guidance from experts on from forming and structuring your company to building a great team, you will walk away with the knowledge of how to build and run a sustainable health tech business - More here