#60 🍩 What The Health - Elons AI image analysis, Netflix for health & Kids social media ban
Your health tech & innovation TL;DR roundup
Happy Friday
It’s suddenly almost silly season, the US has a new president elect, and if you’re anything like me I’m pretty much checked out for the year.
But - we still have a month or so to go… AND some fun EOY celebrations to send off the year 🥳🎄🥂
Stay tuned for your end of year party drop real soon 👀
🍩 TODAY’S ISSUE
Newsworthy
Sick Science
AI Updates
Startup Stuff
Events
Cool Content
Noteworthy 🗞️
Funding
🧬 exteRNA, a Melb biotech developing new drugs that target RNA biology to treat difficult cancers, raised $11M seed funding
🌟 Valion Health has been acquired by We Lysn, joining forces to enhance virtual care for cancer survivorship & mental health across Australia
💸 UQ’s UniQuest & Molecule to Medicine partnered to launch biotech startup Lucia Bio with $1M to develop advanced anti-inflammatory treatments
🏆 NanoCube Health, secured a $3M grant to advance its AI-driven nanotech to detect, monitor and target pancreatic cancer
💰 Neuren Pharmaceuticals, developing early childhood neurodevelopmental disorders therapies, secured a $76M boost from the sale of an FDA Priority Review Voucher
👟 IDA Sports, a women’s footwear brand focused on soccer cleats designed for female athletes, secured $2M in a seed round
Newsworthy
🏆 Updoc, winners of the Customer Champions Award, is proving new models for healthcare are needed, wanted and work - hitting 200% compounded annual growth with their offer of faster doctor access with a Netflix-style subscription model starting at $19.95/month
💊 Chemist Warehouse’s retail media revenue has declined by $150M >2 years as it grapples with a tougher ad market and rising competition from Woolies & Coles
WTF is retail media? Selling promotional space in its stores, online and on TV shows and newspaper liftouts it owns. And, the pharmacy giant supposedly makes a sizeable chunk of its revenue this way… And probably helps keep them prices so cheap
🏥 The ACCC approved the $8.8B merger of Chemist Warehouse & Sigma Healthcare, with conditions to attempt to protect competition & customer choice
Sigma must limit data use from wholesale customers, stay in the Community Service Obligation for 5 years, & allow pre-July 2024 franchisees to exit their agreements within 3 years
🚰 Aussies’ ketamine use has reached record highs with alcohol dropping, but cannabis remaining the most-used illicit drug, especially in regional areas
🦄 Helfie, who’s raised US$33M to daste develop an app that screens for up to 20 health conditions—like skin cancer & respiratory issues using just a photo or a cough analysis… wants to be the next unicorn.
🔬 Monash Uni & Optiscan Imaging are partnering to develop AI-powered endoscopes that detect cancerous lesions in real-time
📉 COVID-19 deaths from 2021 to 2023 have lowered Aus life expectancy for the 2nd consecutive year, with a drop of 0.2 years for women & 0.1 years for men
🌍 Eucalyptus co-founder Charlie Gearside steps down as the telehealth company pivots to stability & international growth in the UK, Germany, & Japan
📉 Tassie's health system has faced a dramatic rise in locum expenses, tripling from $57M in 2020-21 to $182M last financial year
No wonder theres a boom in early stage locum startups and agencies… talk about a big market
🚀 Presagen’s new venture, Qubigen, claims it will be merging federated AI with virtual screening to build the largest dataset for AI-driven drug design
Gov Goss
📱 Aus is officialing going to ban under-16s from social media - but its stired a global debate over “weak evidence” on digital impact on youth mental health
Hate to break it to the internet, but no amount of debate will ever answer the question of “will it work” and its outcomes. Guess we’ll just have to see, but it sure is a fascinating social experiment - and theres pretty strong evidence that its not great
But, in a world that certainly isn’t going back from social media and the internet embedded in everything, how do we really begin to address the mental health effects at every age?
🏥 > 5.4M extra doctor visits were bulk-billed last year after the Gov 3x incentives for GPs treating pensioners, concession card holders, & children
📢 The Gov launched a new public info campaign to help Aussies access affordable healthcare, responding to stats that 3/10 Aussies delayed or skipped GP visits in 2022-23
I think this is a gross enderestimation - as I don’t know about you, but almost everyone I know has now delayed or skipped healthcare for this very reason
📉 The Senate Inquiry into Perimenopause & Menopause, a 169-page document, mentioned “digital” only once 🙃
US & Beyond the Borders
The US has a new president elect - but what will that mean for health?
TBC, but Trump did “promise to shake up public health institutions, reshape federal health programs, and slash high costs across the system.”
And said he’s ready for his luitenants like “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “go wild” on health, medicine, and food policy.”
💔 Forward Health, known for its AI-driven “doctor-in-a-box” CarePods, is shutting down and laying off its entire 200-person staff
🏆 Time’s "Best Inventions of 2024" featured 37 healthcare pioneers among 200 winners. Ft. standouts like Abridge, Laguna Insight, BiVacor, & Google DeepMind AlphaFold 3
🩺 Medicine faces a generational shift, younger doctors challenge the belief that med is a “calling,” questioning the culture of relentless hours their older peers saw as essential to patient care
💍 Oura's 3rd acquisition in 2 years, Sparta Science, will boost its data analytics & expand B2B offerings on the Oura Teams platform for enterprise & healthcare client
👶 Nodal, a tech-driven platform, matches hopeful parents with vetted surrogates, cutting out traditional agencies to lower costs & wait times
Sick Science
🧠 Hormones Reshape the Brain Every Month
UC Santa Barbara researchers found that menstrual cycle hormone fluctuations reshape brain structure, enhancing white matter integrity & cortical thickness. This first mapping reveals how estrogen, luteinizing hormone, & progesterone impact key regions, with implications for cognition & mental health.
🧬 Memories Aren’t Just in Your Brain
A Nature Communications study found that applying repeated, spaced signals to human cells boosted memory-like cellular responses more effectively than a single, continuous signal. This "spaced learning" effect, typically seen in brain cells, was recreated by sending bursts of chemical signals at intervals, activating memory-related proteins (CREB and ERK) longer and more strongly.
🎶 Proof Tunes Boost Focus
UC Santa Barbara researchers found that music with rapid amplitude shifts enhances focus, especially for those with ADHD. In fMRI tests, "fast modulations" (quick, rhythmic changes in volume) activated attention networks, & EEG results confirmed stronger brain-wave coupling (synchronisation between brain waves and the music’s rhythm). This effect was strongest for listeners with more ADHD symptoms.
🍬 Early-Life Sugar Limits Cut Disease Risk
A Science retro study found that exposure to sugar rationing within the first 1000 days of life lowered the risk of diabetes by 35% & hypertension by 20%. Using UK Biobank data, researchers observed that early-life sugar restrictions, especially in-utero, delayed disease onset & offered lasting health protection
🌍 Global Inequality Set to Triple Cancer Deaths by 2050
A JAMA study projects a nearly 90% rise in global cancer deaths by 2050, with cases 3x in low-HDI countries. While high-HDI nations may see a 42% increase, low-HDI regions face a 142% rise in cases and 146% in deaths. Contributing factors include limited healthcare infrastructure, higher mortality-to-incidence ratios (MIRs), & slower cancer prevention progress, with MIRs in low-HDI countries nearly double those in high-HDI regions.
🤖 AI Updates
🩻 Elon challenged everyone to submit medical images to Grok for analysis - talk about a great free dataset and distribution - But Aussie founded Harrison.AI clapped back and compared head to head the different options
💡 Amazon’s One Medical, with >150 clinics, has launched AI tools to reduce doctors' admin work, using AWS HealthScribe to capture visit details & summarise outside medical records
🔍 Google Health's paper, Safety Principles for Medical Summarization Using Generative AI, outlines strategies for managing risks like hallucinations, bias, & misuse in models
🛡️ Conflixis uses AI to analyse doctor-vendor relationships, identifying potential corruption risks to help hospitals reduce regulatory exposure
🦴 Sword Health, a $3B musculoskeletal startup, cut 17% of its clinical workforce as it ramps up AI to help clinicians manage larger patient caseloads
🌐 ChatGPT’s new search feature brings up-to-date answers with linked sources, letting users access timely web content directly within chat —so you can Google things without actually Googling them
Startup Stuff 🚀
Looking to Commercialise Your Research?
CUREator+ accelerates early-stage Aus medical innovations with commercial potential, offering funding, networks, & hands-on mentorship. Open for round 2 funding apps now - More here
Ready to Grow Your Business with Executive Leadership?
EY is running the Winning Women Asia-Pacific program, a year-long executive leadership course designed to empower entrepreneurial women through networking, mentorship, & strategic planning sessions - More here
Want to Empower NSW Frontline Workers with AI?
Microsoft & Avanade Australia are running an AI Hackathon & Design Thinking Workshop on 21 November 2024 in Sydney to create innovative solutions for NSW public sector frontline workers - More here
Interested in Health Promotion Research?
VicHealth is offering early-career researchers the opportunity to transform health promotion through 3 year fellowships, ft. salary support & $10k project funding. Focus areas include the effects of racism on health, food system inequalities, & building a wellbeing economy - More here
Looking for Funding to Develop Drugs or Devices?
The TTRA, part of the MRFF, is offering up to $1.5M for Aussie start-ups, spin-outs, & SMEs to develop drugs or devices for cardiovascular disease & diabetes complications - More here
Looking to Boost Your Digital Health Credentials?
The University of Sydney is offering two digital health microcredentials this October: AI in Healthcare: Practice Implications & Digitally Enabled Healthcare - More here
Want Microsoft & NVIDIA to help you Transform Healthcare?
Microsoft for Startups & NVIDIA Inception are offering health & life sciences startups the chance to harness AI to build & scale their businesses. Get up to $150K in Azure credits, GPU resources, & expert support to accelerate drug discovery, & personalised medicine - More here
Looking for Clinical Trials Funding in 2024?
The MRFF is offering grants for clinical trials focused on rare cancers, rare diseases, unmet needs, & implementing proven health interventions - More here
Events💥
15th Nov: Advancing Safety in Healthcare Conference (Melb)
20th Nov: Sharing about Healthcare Artificial intelligence REgionally (SHARE) 2024 (Melb & online)
21st Nov: BioMelbourne Network Annual General Meeting & Networking Event (Melb)
26th Nov: BioForum – Biotech scandal to SaaS Success: Fireside chat with Theranos ’survivor’ Marissa Senzaki (Melb)
27th Nov: BioMelb - Masterclass – Vital ventures: Scaling healthtech with sustainable strategies (Melb)
26th Nov: AusBiotech, WA Life Sciences Innovation Hub and Life Sciences WA | WA End-of-Year Celebration 2024 (Perth)
4th Dec: HealthTech Hub Masterclass: Navigating Health Tech Funding (Syd)
5th Dec: ACTIVATE 2024 SHOWCASE: Celebrating Victoria’s Digital Health Innovators (Melb)
10th Dec: ANDHealth Digital Health Summit: From New Frontiers to the Frontline (Melb)
11th Dec: What The Health - Melbourne Healthtech Community Christmas Party
[SAVE THE DATE] 🎄
12th June: HealthTech - Reimagining the Future of Patient Care (Syd)
Consumable Content 💎
🎙️Huberman Lab: Dr. Allan Schore: How Relationships Shape Your Brain
Dr. AS explains how early child-parent interactions shape right-brain circuitry, impacting emotional regulation, relationships, & creativity throughout life
✨ Dr Hugh Harvey discusses that just as wooden tongue depressors require regulatory clearance, clinical software—being more complex & higher risk—also demands it
📊 Deloitte has released a series of 10 life sciences & healthcare predictions reports on topics including:
Consumers are the CEOs of their own health
The rise of a dynamic consumer market
Intelligent healthcare and the democratisation of health data
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