#67 🍩 What the Health - Budget breakdown, Patients prefer AI & Funding Fraud?
Whats happening in health tech & innovation?
Happy hump day.
In case you missed it, silly admin tings first.
Melbourne Event
Em’s off to the US (specifically, SF)
And, free tickets to DHF
🌎 Going Global: Investing & Scaling Medtech 🥂
Keen to connect with other like-minded legends?
And learn from Global and local experts in Medtech, Diagnostics & Digital Health?
Join us and our friends Tenmile, We VC, ANDHealth & The Medtech Actuator for an exclusive evening of insight and networking, where we’ll dive into one of the biggest challenges for Aussie healthtech startups: going global. 🌏
📅 Wednesday, April 9
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM
📍 CHICC, Melbourne CBD
🥂 Drinks & nibbles
Keen?
OK - onto the news for the day…
🍩 TODAY’S ISSUE
Newsworthy
Sick Science
AI Updates
Startup Stuff
Events
Cool Content
Brought to you with…
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Noteworthy 🗞️
Funding
🧠 Next Level Collaboration, a teamwork-based video game for neurodivergen kids spun out of UniMelb, scored a $500k pre-seed round to go global
Newsworthy
💊 StrongRoom AI, a meds management startup that announced it raised $17M this month, has entered receivership after lead investor, EVP called in police & demanded their money back
EVP cited “financial misrepresentations” just 10 days after announcing the raise, prompting legal action & triggering administration. The move reportedly blindsided other investors - but we’re still yet to know what actually happened or where things are at
🧠 Cortical Labs launched the CL1, a biological computer using living brain cells, now available via cloud and hardware after 6 years of R&D
💥 Opthea, an Aus biotech targeting macular degeneration, faces collapse after its $1B eye drug failed a Phase-3 trial, underperforming standard care, & triggered investor repayment risks
📞 Aus’s first virtual ED, the Vic Virtual Emergency Department, hit 500k consults, helping 83% of patients avoid hospital visits & easing pressure on paramedics
🧪 NEXT Life Sciences has launched clinical trials in Aus for Plan A™, a hormone-free, reversible male contraceptive designed to last up to 10 years
🧠 Synchron, the Aus-founded competitor to Musk's Neuralink, unveiled Chiral, a brain-trained foundation AI model that lets users control devices with thought, using its BCI tech, Nvidia Holoscan, & Apple Vision Pro
🦅 La Trobe launched it’s $18M Eagle Fund with Breakthrough Vic to back pre-seed research in AI, digital health, disease detection, & food security
📱 Consultmed & Telecare are integrating eReferrals & eScripts into one mobile platform, letting hospital clinicians send both digitally without switching systems
Yay for consolidation and seemless workflows!
💻 The Aus Digital Health (DH) Agency & the Council of Senior Academic Leaders in DH, backed by 37 founding unis, will embed DH education into uni degrees nationwide to upskill Aus’s future healthcare workforce
🎗️ Aus has the world’s highest breast cancer diagnosis rate, with 100 cases per 100k women, but deaths are falling thanks to early detection & strong treatment completion
Gov Goss
Of course, we HAVE to start with a Fed Budg 2025-26 breakdown
TLDR Health got the big-ticket items. Startups & innovation got a side note
💸 Medicare gets $8.4B with $7.9B over 4 yrs to expand bulk billing. By 2030, 9/10 GP visits expected to be fully bulk billed. 4,800 practices on board. Patients save $859M a year
🏥 Hospitals get a one-off $1.8B boost to cut wait times & ease pressure on EDs
*MORE SPECIFICS - how??*🆘 50 new Medicare Urgent Care Clinics opening. 80% of Aussies will be within 20 mins of one
💊 PBS co-payments drop to $25. $1.8B for new meds incl contraception, cancer, menopause
👩⚕️ Women’s health gets $793M for cheaper contraception, more endo clinics, menopause support & LARC training
📱 Digital health gets $229M to keep modernising My Health Record
🧑⚕️ Workforce gets $663M for GP training, nurse scholarships & rural incentives
🧠 Digital mental health services get an extra $46M to keep running
💡 “Innovation” was barely mentioned & “startup” was entirely absent
Only standout is a proposed ban on non-competes under $175K. Founders are split. Some say it frees up talent. Others say it puts early-stage ventures at risk
🏥 NSW Health built a state-wide Operational Data Store using MFST Azure to unify data across 228 hospitals
📉 WA Health scrapped its $8.4M eReferral contract with Salesforce & Deloitte, reverting to legacy systems after the project failed to deliver a modern, interoperable solution - eek 😬🙊
🧬 The NSW Organoid Innovation Centre officially launched as a multi-institutional hub for biomanufacturing organoids, uniting USyd, UNSW & CMRI to advance stem cell research with AI & robotics
US & Beyond the Borders 🌎
The International gov goss making waves in the US right now:
🏛️ RFK Jr will cut 10k jobs from US health agencies including the CDC, FDA, & NIH, blaming “bureaucratic sprawl” for worsening public health and pledging to “do more with less”
💉 Dr Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine official, resigned citing RFK Jr’s “misinformation & lies,” warning that undermining vaccine trust is a “clear danger” to public health
🧬 23andMe, the OG human genetics & biotech company, filed for bankruptcy after rejecting the buyout bid from co-founder Anne Wojcicki. Meaning its assets, including peoples genetic data… are up for sale.
🍏Apple announced, finally, its new AI- health project “Mulberry”, an AI-driven health coach trying to replace what a real physician provides to launch in 2026
⏳ Scientific American released a 90 page report, Healthspan: The Science of Aging Well, exploring the shift from lifespan to healthspan & how drugs & data-driven tools aim to delay aging, prevent disease, & extend healthy years
🌿 IM8, the supplements company co-founded by David Beckham, added Dr. Amy Shah & Dr. Jeremy London to its Scientific Advisory Board
Sick Science
📝 Patients Prefer AI… Until You Tell Them It’s AI
A Duke Health survey of 1,455 patients found that AI-drafted responses to patient portal messages were rated more useful & empathetic than human-written ones. But when AI authorship was disclosed, satisfaction dropped slightly, compared to human or no disclosure. Despite this dip, over 75% of patients remained satisfied.
☕️ Is Your Office Coffee Raising Your Cholesterol?
Researchers from Uppsala Uni, Chalmers Uni of Tech, & Region Dalarna analysed coffee from 14 workplace machines & found many contain high levels of cholesterol-raising compounds—cafestol & kahweol—compared to paper-filtered brews. Brewed machine coffee had up to 444 mg/L of cafestol, while paper-filtered coffee averaged just 12 mg/L.
🧫 A Faster, Sharper Way to ID Deadly Bacteria Without Culture
Researchers from UNIST & the Institute for Basic Science developed a new method to identify multiple bacterial species rapidly & accurately—without culturing. Using PNA-based FISH probes & FRET imaging, they distinguished seven common bloodstream pathogens with up to 99.9% accuracy. The technique leverages peptide nucleic acids’ superior mismatch sensitivity & bacterial penetration, making it faster & more precise than conventional probes.
🔍 Why do men & women feel nerve pain differently?
Researchers at the Uni of Calgary found a sex-specific mechanism behind chronic neuropathic pain. In this preclinical rodent study, they showed that the same channel protein—Pannexin-1 (Panx1)—triggers pain through different immune pathways: in males, it drives VEGF release from microglia, while in females, it activates leptin release from spinal CD8+ T cells.
🧬 How Long Does It Really Take to Recover After Birth?
Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science analysed 44M lab tests from over 300k pregnancies, revealing a detailed, week-by-week map of the body’s changes from preconception to 18 months postpartum. Nearly half of all physiological markers—like liver enzymes & cholesterol—took >10 weeks to return to baseline, with some taking a year or never fully recovering.
🤖 AI Updates
🧠 Accenture surveyed 300 c-suite healthcare execs in its Gen AI Amplified report, finding that while 83% of execs are piloting gen AI, <10% are investing in widespread deployment, despite 60% of execs expecting ROI within a year
But realistically, we also know… this is going to take time.
The tech isnt going anywhere. And once you invest into baseline infrastructure, as we all know all too well - its darn hard to extract it (usually impossible). So its actually probably smart to take your time, assess options, experiment, and wait for the market to devlop and right solution for all your needs
Last thing any of us want is more outdated kind of shitty systems.
👩⚕️ Tia, a women’s health clinic, rolled out Nabla’s AI assistant across all clinics after a pilot halved clinical note time, boosting provider focus & strengthening patient care
🏅 Fast Company named 5 AI healthcare startups to its Most Innovative Companies 2025 list, including Abridge, WellRithms, AISAP, Apella, & Infinitus
😨 Bill Gates says AI will replace many doctors & teachers within a decade, predicting humans won’t be needed “for most things” as the world enters an era of “free intelligence”
🩺 Google released 6 new health AI tools, including FHIR-enabled Medical Records APIs, improved Search for complex queries, & xGemma models for AI drug discovery
Startup Stuff 🚀
Want to Connect with Global Biotech Leaders at BIO 2025?
MTPConnect’s BIO 2025 Site Visit Program offers exclusive access to top biotech companies like CSL, Novartis, & Pfizer, plus high-impact networking with industry leaders. This two-day program features site visits, keynotes, & curated events to connect Aus life sciences innovators globally. – More here
Need Funding for Therapeutic Development?
TIA’s Pipeline Accelerator vouchers offer up to $50k (with 50% co-investment) to subsidise access to leading research facilities. This round partners with Phenomics Australia, ANSTO’s NDF, & Bioplatforms Australia, expanding access to infrastructure. – More here
Looking to Boost International Science Collaboration?
ATSE, in partnership with the Aus Academy of Science, is offering grants of up to $1M each through the Global Science & Tech Diplomacy Fund to foster science & tech collabs with regional neighbours - More here
Ready to turn your biotech idea into a commercial success?
BioElevate by Jumar is a 2-day hands-on workshop designed to guide you through the commercialisation process step-by-step - More here
Events💥
7th Apr: AFR Healthcare Summit (Syd)
9th Apr: Going Global: Investing & Scaling Medtech (Melb)
10th Apr: Investing in Health Tech | Forever Young Series (Perth)
30th Apr - 1st May: Sunrise Aus 2025 (Syd)
6th May: ANDHealth Unfiltered: Digital Health Summit (Syd)
6 - 8th May: AusMedtech
13 - 14th May: Digital Health Festival
16th May: Connecting Women Lunch (Melb)
4th - 5th June: International Mental Health Conference (GC)
17th - 28th June: Towards One Healthcare System Summit (Canberra)
Consumable Content 💎
🎙️ABC’s Health Report: Health promises in the 2025-26 budget
Budget broken down by Dr Norman Swan and Dr Preeya Alexander
📖 Yuechen Zhao breaks down how Google’s new “Ask for me” feature could be a game-changer for healthcare, by using AI to call clinics & check appointment availability so patients don’t have to
📺 Microsoft: The AI Revolution in Medicine, Revisited: An Introduction
Peter Lee, President of Microsoft Research, reflects on the early hopes for GPT-4 in healthcare & explores how gen AI is actually being used today by patients, providers, & researchers
🎙️Fitt Insider #281: Ariana Thacker, founder and CEO of MoldCo
Ariana Thacker shares how she’s building a healthcare platform to tackle mold-related illness through personalised testing & accessible treatments
💡Got Feedback? Something to include next time? Keen to get in touch?
We want to make this worthy of your time & the best possible.
💌 Hit reply or reach out to emily@whatthehealth.io to let us know
Thats all this week fam.
Melbourne - Vic & the team will see you next week.
Otherwise SF - can’t wait to meet you 🇺🇸
👋 Emily,
Mariah & team WTH
With thanks to our partners 💜
Want to get featured here in front of >9150 health-loving legends?
Shoot us a note for ad placement and partnership opportunities.