#39 🍩 What the Health - Psychedelics are live, funding flies, & the Deep Tech draw card
#39 🍩 What the Health - Psychedelics are live, funding flies, & the Deep Tech draw card
Your health tech & innovation TL;DR roundup
Hey there WTHers,
So after much anticipation, we finally launched Cohort 2 of the What the Health Private Community Crew ft. 110 new legends.
And even combined them with the OG Cohort 1 🥺 It was cute.
They’re pretty darn amazing 🔥
Want to join in the fun too?
Check out the info here and join the waitlist for our next intake!
We’d love to have you 💜
🎉 PS - In case you missed it, Cicada x Tech23: Australia’s Deeptech Festival is on next week showcasing 23 epic Deep Tech Startups. As someone all-in on deep tech, it’s pretty darn exciting. If you’re keen to go check it out - snag a ticket here!
🍩 TODAY
Newsworthy
Startup Stuff
Events
Cool Content
*Sick Science & AI Updates - Deferred til the next drop - stay tuned 👀
💜 Brought to you with… IDE’s BBFH Challenge
Healthcare innovator with a game-changing idea?
Keen for support, funding and expert mentorship to build the future of health?Applications for IDE’s Building Better Futures for Health Challenge are closing soon!
You could snag upto $40,000 of IDE support and services in design, development, and commercialisation help to bring it to life. And showcase your stuff in front of industry & experts. Anyone with an idea, business or product can apply!
So what are you waiting for?!
Check out this vid for more details and throw in an app👇
Keen to get featured here ft. ads or sponsorship? Flick us a note
Noteworthy 🗞️
Funding Fun
🤝 Kynd, the NDIS marketplace, got acquired by Nib subsidiary Thrive, as they continue on their health tech spree
🤖 International Medical Robotics Academy (IMRA), a startup training doctors on surgical robots, snagged $5.6m to help surgeons train like pilots
💸Hostplus plowed another $100m into Aussie ops of its UK-listed deep tech venture fund IP Group, as it seeks more exposure to new & developing industries
🤰 Kali Healthcare, creators of a wearable sensor patch to enable baby monitoring during pregnancy secured $1m in pre-seed funding
🏥 National Critical Research Infrastructure Grants saw $73m go to 19 projects - ft. better cancer treatments, new vaxes, nonpharmaceutical depression treatment, and gut health
💊 The Best of Moi, a liquid dietary supplement ft vitamins, nootropics & TGA approval, announced $850K pre-seed to supercharge its wellness brand
🥇 The WA government named the 10 finalists to compete in its $5m digital health challenge
💸 Ellume Health, the QLD biotech company that previously snagged a $300m US Giv Covid contract, also entered liquidation after a takeover offer fell through
🐫 TESSA Therapeutics, one of the top-funded biotech startups in Singapore, will sadly soon enter liquidation after failing to find investors to continue development of its cancer treatment cell therapies
🔬 Optiscan Imaging, digital microscopic imaging, offering live single-cell imaging solutions in the palm of your hand, announced their entitlement Issue has snagged $16.7m in funds
Newsworthy
🍄 Psychedelics are now legal for the treatment of PTSD and treatment-resistant depression in Aus, and they’re a hot topic…
Here’s a little info on who can actually prescribe MDMA and psilocybin and why
🧠And Ketamine for hard-to-treat depression is showing promise in a landmark trial
💸 APRA issued Medibank with a $250m “punishment” for the cyber security scandal
🏥 The Royal Women’s Hospital opened Australia’s first public egg and sperm bank to try reduce the fertility barriers to starting a family
🦠 Lumos’ rapid point-of-care diagnostic test FebriDx® received US FDA clearance - to be used as an aid in the diagnosis of bacterial acute respiratory infections
😴 Resmed announced the launch of Rivi™ their new virtual sleep clinic “designed holistically for women”
⚡️Tesla’s chair and all-round legend Robyn Denholm reckons
“Three decades of economic prosperity has “muted the risk appetite” of Australian business leaders”
🚨 IMD WORLD COMPETITIVENESS YEARBOOK 2023 was released… with Aus not faring too well in innovation…
Australia’s worst result was again on entrepreneurship – we slipped to 62nd of 64 nations.
And… “Persistent weak business investment also continues to drag on our performance.
🧬 Synthetica Bio, a new company by Adelaide ex-pats and health biz vets launched ft a lineup of stellar US investors that aims to use generative AI to access and analyse data in the biopharma field
The new, US-based company will be using “large language model” AI to help researchers analyse data, with the company training its LLM on more than 220 million de-identified patient records.
📣 CSIRO’s CEO Larry Marshall says Australia needs more ‘scientist CEOs’ - calling on super funds to invest more in science and policymakers to consider innovation as a hedge to inflation and job losses
❤️🩹 Roche and Cardihab partnered to improve the quality and standards of care, that deliver better outcomes for people living with cardiovascular conditions
💨 Alcidion and Olinqua partnered to launch Miya Central – a solution using AI with real-time metrics to empower hospitals and enable operational inefficiencies and data-driven decisions
🏨 Vaxxas has opened its new giant headquarters in Hamilton QLD to scale up manufacturing of its needle-free vaccine patch platform
🏆 Vively has teamed up with Beyond TotalFusion bringing their CGM application and state-of-the-art facilities and treatment centers together for a holistic approach to preventative health
🪢 The CSIRO extended its partnership with Dedalus to make its clinical terminology server available globally
🤕 The rate of bowel cancer is up 153% in millennials in the past 30 years
🥇 Diag-Nose.io, makers of novel rhinology tools and biomarker tech, made it through 4 elimination rounds in the competitive Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) program in Seattle, making it the first Australian company to graduate in the Computational Health Stream
Gov & Policy
🎮 Monash Uni & VicHealth are rolling out Minecraft to students to help them build healthier communities
📚 NSW Health outlined its plan to replace the state’s many systems with a “single digital patient record”
🏃♀️The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) partnered with the WA gov to accelerate the development of their sports tech and innovation ecosystem
🇮🇱 The Vic Gov and a consortium of partners are collaborating with Israel’s leading medical research center to maybe establish a new digital health innovation centre
👩⚕️ Newly established NSW Health System Advisory Council aims to empower healthcare workers to guide and drive change throughout the NSW health system
💰The ACT Gov allocated a whopping $2.3bn of its recent budget just to health
US & Beyond the Borders
💉 Sanofi is supposedly going all “all-in” on AI - aiming to be the first pharma company powered by AI at scale
🧑⚕️ Neko Health, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s newest preventative health venture ft private clinics complete with full-body scanning tech announced another €60M in funding
🩸 Flo Health’s ‘Anonymous Mode’ feature goes Open-Source in hopes of helping with Industry-Wide Privacy Protection
🍏 Apple Vision Pro could give doctors 'superpowers' says a US-based surgeon
📲 Healthwords, launched aiming to revolutionize self-care and free up much-needed GP appointments in the NHS as one of the world’s first generative AI programs, providing personalised healthcare advice.
💍 Oura partnered with a bunch of orgs to integrate its sleep data with CGMs and glucose levels
🤠 Barclays believes that the obesity therapeutic market could top $200B globally by 2030
🖥️ AvoMD - a clinical no-code tool, raised US$5M to combat doctor burnout
👨💻 WHO & HL7 are collaborating to support the adoption of open interoperability standards globally - hoping to improve the consistency of data and info in health
🌏 Google dropped a piece about how they’re improving outcomes in healthcare across APAC
Startup Stuff 🚀
Want to pitch at the global SXSW 2023 Festival in Sydney?
The international festival is having its debut in Sydney this October and calling for pitches from health and medtech startups! You could get in front of industry experts, high-profile media, and investors. And nab x2 return flights to SXSW Austin to pitch again in front of the US audience - Find out more here
Pre-Seed founder looking to raise in the next 12 months?
Rampersand’s Giant Warm Intro is back! You can meet Aus VCs and angel investors; ask for advice, test your pitch, create connections, or simply learn about the fundraising process in supportive 1:1 sessions - More here
Early Stage Biotech looking for support and space?
Jumar Bioincubator is Aus’s newest biotech incubator, run by Cicada Innovations ft. CSL, WEHI, Uni Melb and Breakthrough Victoria and seeking EOIs from early-stage biotech start-ups looking for support and space to commercialise medical research - More here
Doing research in genomics or mental health?
$43m of Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) grant opportunities for research into the better use of genomics in diagnoses and the improved mental health and well-being of vulnerable people are now available
Want to get investment ready?
The Biointelect Venturer Programs provide real-world insights into the investment environment and get partners and investors ready - More here
Want to upskill in something digital?
The Digital Jobs program is a free program that helps people >30 years old retrain for a new digital career. The program includes 12 weeks of free training, career coaching, and a 12-week paid digital work placement - More here
Looking to support R&D in Vic?
Made in Victoria’s Industry R&D Infrastructure fund, will provide matched grant funding to eligible Victorian businesses to support the growth of Victoria’s R&D capabilities across key industries - More here
Looking for Medical Research Grants?
The Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) has $310m for research to improve the health and well-being of Australians, the consumer healthcare experience, primary health care, and national critical research infrastructure - Search them here
Vic-based startup looking for funding?
LaunchVic’s new CivVic Labs Challenge with VicHealth is now taking apps! The program offers early-stage founders the opp to nab $15,000 and develop their solutions to help Victorians better access and enjoy community outdoor spaces - More here
Women-led company looking for a boost?
SBE 2023 Life Sciences program s now taking apps. The program is designed for women-led, clinically informed companies that have a proven MVP and are ready for investment - More here
ANZ Generative Company?
AWS is launching apps for their first-ever cohort for an ANZ-specific Generative AI Accelerator program, set to kick off in late July and run until the end of August. There's currently an EOI page open to take interest from eligible startups
Events💥
Thur 20th July: WACHCI Expert Series Workshop 3 - Building Your Go-To-Market Strategy
Wed 26th July: Cicada x Tech 23
Mon 31st July: BIO Connections Australia
Wed 13th Sep: BBFH Challenge 2023
19th - 22nd Sep: Global Entrepreneurship Congress Melbourne 2023
Fri 4th August: 2023 Remarkable Accelerator Demo Day!
3rd - 4th Oct: MCBK Global Meeting (Americas and Europe)
5th - 6th Oct: MCBK Global Meeting (Australia and Asia)
Sun 30th Oct: AusBioInvest 2023
30th - 31st Oct: MEDTECH 23 Annual Conference
Consumable Content 💎
🎥 Dr Sam Banister - Psychedelics 2.0 and Beyond
Want to know the science of psychedelics? In a way that actually makes sense? What the hype is all about? Whats happening and whats to come?
Check out this talk by Psylo’s CSO and Co-founder
🎧 The Peel with Turner Novak: Making Healthcare a Product, Not a Service | Adrian Aoun (Founder and CEO, Forward)
Discussing the poor incentives of health insurance, why tech has a negative ROI in healthcare, being Larry Page's right-hand man at Google, and building an operating system for healthcare
📉 Rock Health released their H1 2023 digital health funding report: A Brave New (lower funding) World
In case you were wondering if Sam Altman is just an Open AI guy… looks like hes betting on biosciences and drug design too
📝 ANDHealth released its Digital Health Industry Sentiment Survey: Commercialising Digital Health in Australia: FY2023 Industry Sentiment Survey
Lucy Wark, Founder of Normal compiled a fun list of all things equity 101 resources for startups
📘 The Medical Technology Association of Australia has released its digital health whitepaper to the public. The Digital Health: Breaking Barriers to Deliver Better Patient Outcomes report
TLDR; Fragmented data sharing and lack of a national data governance framework are preventing wider uptake of digital health solutions across Australia.
And, a gentle reminder from our friend Sahil Bloom, to always be wary of what you see in the news… it isn’t always reality (especially in health)
💡Got thoughts on this drop? Something to share or include next time?
Hit reply or reach out to info@whatthehealth.io to let us know!
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👋 Emily & The WTH Crew
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