#93 🍩 AdvanCell's $450M, Neko Health's US$700M raise & OpenAI's ChatGPT Health launch
What's happening in health tech & innovation?
Morning friends,
Sliding into your inbox with a wild lot of funding updates and AI announcements to end the week 👀
In case you can’t be bothered reading, we unpack a good bit of it in our podcast ep that dropped last week.
With the wonderful Dr Jackie Rabec, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at ThinkMD.ai, and Dr Prashanth Rajan, Investor at Brandon Capital, we got into:
Myricx’s US$1.5B acquisition, AdvanCell’s US$315M raise, Everlab, Neko Health, AI drug discovery, RDTI changes and why access to preventive healthcare remains deeply unequal.
A big thanks to our partners Tenmile, DayOne and everyone who helped bring this to life 💜
📺 YouTube | 🍏 Apple | 🎧 Spotify
If you want all the juicy updates, scroll on friends…
🍩 TODAY’S ISSUE
Noteworthy
Funding
Newsworthy
AI Updates
Sick Science
Startup Stuff
Events
Cool Content
Noteworthy 🗞️
Funding
💰 AdvanCell closed a US$315M oversubscribed Series D (~$450m Aussie) one of the largest raises in Aus biotech history, welcoming new and existing investors
Funding will support ADVC001, its lead-212 targeted alpha therapy in Phase 2 for metastatic prostate cancer, and expand isotope manufacturing facilities
💉 Navi raised $6.8M to get its FDA-cleared Neonav catheter device for newborn and paediatric vascular access into US hospitals
🩸 Vexev announced $6M new funding to accelerate FDA 510(k) clearance and U.S. commercialisation of VxWave, its robotic tomographic ultrasound platform for vascular imaging
🍹 Early Bird, a hangover-prevention startup by ex-Eucalyptus staff, closed a $2M seed round
🧠 Wellumio, the NZ medtech behind portable stroke-imaging device Axana, closed an oversubscribed NZD $9.75M pre-Series A
🚑 Nicolab closed a $6M pre-IPO raise to support its now 3rd proposed ASX listing next year
💊 StrongRoom AI raised $2M from pharmacy franchise owners and existing investors after being acquired out of administration last year
🔬Uni Melb researchers secured $66.4M across 43 NHMRC Investigator Grants, backing work across AI, precision cancer treatment, infection control & more
🔬 UNSW received $61M+ across 33 NHMRC Investigator Grants for research spanning nanorobots targeting breast cancer, GLP-1 drugs for methamphetamine addiction, & menstrual cycle-mental health links
Newsworthy
🧫 CREATE Medicines struck an exclusive licensing deal with Monash Uni‘s MIPS to access its lipid nanoparticle targeting tech
💉AstraZeneca will provide Zoladex at no cost to Aussie patients without suitable treatment alternatives after the breast cancer and endometriosis treatment leaves the PBS in November
🫀DonateLife Victoria is preparing to launch an AI clinical assistant for organ donation coordinators, helping them quickly retrieve trusted information during complex cases
📋 Heidi Health‘s new global survey of 1,823 clinicians found AI has already gone mainstream in day-to-day clinical work, ahead of any policy or employer guidance catching up (shock)
86% of clinicians use AI daily or several times a week, & 86% say their usage has grown in the past year
88% cite documentation as their heaviest admin burden, regardless of specialty, country, or years in practice
83% are navigating AI in their practice alone, with no guidance from their employer
73% say AI is helping them sustain a longer, more manageable career
70% cite hallucination & accuracy as their top concern
75% say their patients are open to AI being used in their care
💊 Sam Wood launched Ollo for Women, a telehealth startup pairing GLP-1 prescribing with old-school exercise & nutrition plans for mid-life women
🛒 An EY-Parthenon report (9k+ Aussies surveyed) is projecting up to 30% of Aus adults could be on GLP-1’s within a decade, up from 10% now - and unsurprisingly reshaping supermarket trolleys
🚨 Partnered Health told patients their data may have been stolen in a 23 June cyberattack hitting 20+ of its clinics nationally
🔓 OAIC revealed 2025 was Aus’s worst year on record for data breaches: with health service providers the hardest-hit sector at 19% (225 breaches)
🤖 Grace Brown’s companion-robot company Andromeda is now valued at $100M, with Abi now being used in aged care to support connection and engagement among residents.
🦶Uni Melb & RMIT researchers developed THERMUL, a smartphone-based thermal imaging AI tool that predicts whether diabetic foot ulcers are likely to heal within 12 weeks
🍄 BLS Pharmaceuticals runs Aus’s only facility making both MDMA & psilocybin, exporting to the UK, Germany & beyond to treat PTSD & treatment-resistant depression
The ASX-listed player is forecasting $75M revenue this FY & is already profitable, a rarity in the mostly loss-making psychedelics space. But sessions cost $10K–$20K per patient, mostly for the psychiatrists required to supervise every dose
🎙️ Laronix just landed both FDA & TGA approval for AVA Voice, a wearable that uses AI to help laryngectomy patients speak again
🏆 LX Health wrapped its 2026 LuminaX HealthTech Accelerator with 8 startups pitching
Startup of the Year went to Ketim Technologies, building the world’s first predictive blood test for postpartum depression
🍔 WFH could be making Aussies fat, RMIT research shows, with each extra hour at home nudging up BMI and lifting obesity risk by 7.5–9.1%
🌡️ Menopause workplace protections are on Canberra’s radar, with the fed gov giving in-principle support to considering it as a protected attribute under the Fair Work Act
🧠 Uni Melb researchers are calling for a National Brain Health Strategy, arguing Aus treats stroke, dementia, epilepsy & other neurological conditions disease-by-disease when they’re now the leading cause of disability worldwide
⚖️ The RACP is warning physicians face "significant risk" of being held liable for patient harm caused by AI under current legal frameworks
🧪 Magentus launched interoperable e-requesting capability that lets digital pathology requests move between Aus’s three largest private pathology providers
🚀 Melbourne Uni partnered with ANDHealth to help digital health companies move research towards real-world care
💊 Big pharma M&A hit a record $216bn in H1 2026, up from $118bn
🏥 Pacific Equity Partners secured exclusivity to acquire Infratil's 59.6% stake in radiology chain Qscan for roughly $90M
🦷 Denteric got FDA clearance to begin a Phase 2 US trial of its therapeutic vaccine for gum disease, designed to work alongside existing dental care
💊 ~74% of Aussies take complementary medicines - but offshore sellers are using the Personal Importation Scheme to sell products that bypass our safety standards
🧬 An Alexion-commissioned IQVIA report found Aus funded just 72 rare-disease medicines from 2016–25, ranking 14th out of 15 comparable countries
🫁 4DMedical founder Andreas Fouras debuted on the AFR’s Rich Bosses list with his 12% stake valued at $300M, after the Melbourne medtech’s shares surged 1,400%
🦠 Island Pharmaceuticals got approval to send its experimental antiviral Galidesivir to Uganda for compassionate use during the Ebola outbreak
💊 Wegovy’s proposed PBS listing for people with obesity & cardiovascular disease has stalled after Novo Nordisk rejected the government’s funding conditions and submitted a revised proposal
If approved, it would be Australia’s first public subsidy of a GLP-1 for obesity, but concerns over prescribing & cost blowouts remain unresolved ahead of the PBAC’s November meeting
US & Beyond the Borders
🩻 Daniel Ek's body-scanning startup Neko Health raised a $700M Series C, just 18 months after its $260M Series B & is now prepping its first US location in New York
🏛️ The White House committed $5B+ to the Genesis Mission, a cross-gov push to use AI for scientific discovery across 278 projects
HHS will fuse health records, environmental data & biological research to chase root causes of chronic disease, while DOE supercomputers model rare pediatric cancers & the VA rolls out predictive risk models for veterans
💉 An FDA advisory panel voted to let pharmacies compound 5 peptides, including BPC-157 & MOTS-c, opening a legal pathway for mass distribution
📈 Kalshi & AppliedXL launched prediction markets for clinical trials and FDA decisions, turning market prices into public odds on whether a drug will succeed or not
⌚ WHOOP hired former FDA advisor Dr. Ami Bhatt as Chief Medical Officer as it pushes for regulated medical clearance
💸 Trump threatened 100% tariffs on imported generic medicines from August 2028, rising to 200% later, prompting concerns about shortages, discontinued products and even tighter margins for generic manufacturers
🩺 Hilo raised $19M to bring its wearable-led blood pressure system to the US, adding to last year's $42M raise
🧬 Mahzi Therapeutics, a US biotech running the first-ever gene therapy trial for Pitt Hopkins syndrome, has opened part of its $10M bridge round to the public via equity crowdfunding so rare disease families can buy in from $250
💊 Merck won FDA approval for the first oral PCSK9 inhibitor, turning a cholesterol-lowering target previously tackled through injections into a once-daily pill
🚽 Throne Science raised a $10M Series to expand its AI-powered toilet camera that tracks gut health from stool & urine analysis
⚖️ Hims & Hers launched in the UK, including a new Hers platform giving women access to GLP-1s like Mounjaro & Wegovy alongside doctor-led support
🩺 Hinge Health is acquiring Cylinder Health in a US$105M cash deal, expanding beyond musculoskeletal & migraine care into GI support through one app from 2027
😴 Orzeyful became the first FDA-approved orexin treatment for adults with narcolepsy type 1
💊 Procter & Gamble is acquiring Thorne supplements for US$3.8B, strengthening its push into “preventative & wellness”
👁️ Science Corp’s Prima retinal implant has been cleared for sale in Europe after helping 26 of 32 trial participants identify letters, numbers and words
⌚Garmin launched CIRQA, its screenless fitness band, tracking sleep, heart rate and 80+ activities with up to 10 days of battery life - without a subscription
🤖 AI Updates
🩺 OpenAI launched Health in ChatGPT for US users, letting people connect Apple Health & their medical records so ChatGPT can answer health questions using their own data
🧠 Encord is strapping brain-wave headsets onto human "pilots" to solve robotics' real bottleneck: there's not enough real-world physical training data to build humanoid AI
🤖 UST is embedding Claude into CarePath, its claims & care coordination platform.
🏥 Optum made 2 AI moves: partnering with Anthropic on “responsible, frontier AI” and launching Value Connect, a platform helping payers and providers identify care gaps, prioritise interventions & coordinate next steps.
🧬 Google DeepMind disbanded its Nobel-winning AlphaFold team, reassigning researchers to Gemini, enzyme design, fusion & genomics projects as it pivots strategy toward frontier LLM agents
🩺 OpenAI is going hard at doctors, patients and hospitals, laying out how ChatGPT Health plans to win over the clinical establishment
🏥 Israel's Sheba Medical Centre became the first hospital outside the US to adopt OpenAI's healthcare AI models
🧠 Hemispheric came out of stealth with US$52M to launch Descartes, a 6B parameter AI model trained on 250k+ hours of EEG data that reads brain activity from a 15-minute dry headset session
🏥 Mayo Clinic has ~150 AI models deployed across its health system, including Record Time, which turns messy patient files into searchable summaries & saves doctors 5–30 mins of prep per visit
🦠 Former OpenAI Exec Fidji Simo is building ChronicleBio, an AI startup using patient biological data to study chronic diseases with no known cure
The company has enrolled 709 patients, generated 153 terabytes of data and raised US$15, with at-home blood collection now planned to help scale research
Sick Science
🤖 AI Chatbots Giving You Dangerously Wrong Medical Advice?
A 2026 manuscript from Stanford researchers built NOHARM, a benchmark testing 31 LLMs on 100 real physician-to-specialist cases across 10 specialties, using 12,747 expert annotations.
Even the best models risked severe harm in up to 22.2% of cases, mostly from missing a critical test or referral rather than suggesting something harmful. Top models actually beat generalist physicians on safety, & chaining a few different models together as a second opinion team cut errors even further.
🧠 Is “Brain Rot” Actually Wrecking Your Mental Health?
A 2026 Psychological Reports study of 439 young adults tested how "brain rot," aka the cognitive fatigue from endless digital scrolling, actually leads to depression. Turns out brain rot doesn't hit depression directly.
It burns you out first, which then spikes stress and anxiety, and the pile-up is what tips into depressive symptoms. People who already struggle to regulate their emotions felt every step of this spiral harder.
💍 Could Your Ring Read Your Blood Sugar From Sweat?
A 2026 manuscript from UC San Diego researchers describes a smart ring that tracks six biochemical markers, including glucose, ketones and alcohol, using sweat naturally collected from the skin.
The ring runs for around 12 hours per charge and held calibration for about two months. In tests involving healthy volunteers and people with type 1 diabetes, its glucose and ketone readings closely tracked commercial blood meters and continuous glucose monitors.
🩸 Could mRNA Stop Dangerous Clots Without Causing Bleeding?
Australian researchers used mRNA to instruct the body to produce an antibody that blocks platelets involved in harmful clot formation while leaving normal clotting intact. In mice, a next-generation version provided protection for seven days and beyond, with human studies planned next.
🧠 Could LSD Help Your Brain Learn?
A single dose of LSD improved motor learning the following day in a randomised trial of 43 healthy adults. Participants also reported lower stress and greater cognitive flexibility one week later, suggesting some effects may continue beyond the trip.
Startup Stuff 🚀
Need a lab and not just a laptop?
CoLabs’ Kinesis is an 18-week, lab-embedded pre-accelerator for Victorian idea-to-pre-seed founders, researchers & early teams, offering $5K for prototyping, PC2 lab access, mentoring & investor connections. Applications are open, with an online info session on 7 August - Apply here | Info session
Building a better way to care?
La Trobe LaunchPad is a 12-week hybrid pre-accelerator helping care economy founders validate their idea, test demand & sharpen their business model, with up to $5K available at the final pitch. Applications close 23 August - More here
Could $100K move your research forward?
Avant Foundation Research Grants are offering up to $100,000 for projects improving the quality, safety and sustainability of medicine, with a focus on health systems. EOIs close on 31 August - More Here
Got research that could become a company?
CSIRO ON Accelerate 11 is now open for Aus research-led teams. The free three-month program covers market validation, business models, storytelling & capital raising, while founders retain their IP. Applications close 31 August - More here
Building something in HealthTech & want a launchpad?
LuminaX 2027 EOIs are now open, a 14-week Gold Coast accelerator with investor, clinician & mentor access, plus partners incl. EDQ, Invest Gold Coast, QIC, Griffith, NRL & Gold Coast Hospital & Health Service - More here
Building deeper than another chatbot?
Boson Collider is taking applications for its 12-week deeptech pre-accelerator, with a healthcare & life sciences track spanning clinical AI, diagnostics, surgical robotics & drug discovery. The non-dilutive program runs in Melbourne from October - More here
Ready to go stateside?
ANDHealth is leading a targeted US delegation for Australian digital health and health technology companies from 10–18 November, visiting Silicon Valley, San Francisco & Las Vegas. The program includes curated business meetings, expert workshops, networking events & attendance at HLTH US, helping companies connect with potential customers, partners and investors while accelerating their US market entry - More here
Ready to take your startup to the next level?
Startmate is accepting expressions of interest for its 2027 Accelerator. Selected ANZ startups receive AUD$120K in investment & join a 12-week program focused on product, growth, mentoring & fundraising. Applications close 8 November - More here
Events💥
26th Aug: Building Victoria’s Clinical Research Workforce (Melb + online)
1st Sep: Startup to Scaleup Summit 2026 (Syd)
1st Sep: 2026 Women’s Health & Wellbeing Summit (Syd)
2nd Sep: MedTech Actuator Origin: Demo Day (Melb)
3rd Sep: Current uses of AI in South Australia (Adl)
8th Sep: Digital health & innovation community (Perth)
9th Sep: Cicada xTech23 (Syd)
Cool Content 💎
🎙️ Huberman Lab: Peptides: The Science, Uses & Safety | Dr. Abud Bakri
For those keen to go down the rabbithole (*disclaimer - we do not endorse but can’t ignore the growing cult)
📖 BioPharma Dive dives into How AI-discovered Drugs Are Faring In The Clinic: Some of the industry’s most closely-watched AI drugs could provide insight into the success of technology-assisted development.
🗞️ Reed Jobs in TechCrunch, talks about his firm Yosemite, why he builds cancer companies from scratch out of uni labs, & how AI is finally cracking drug targets
📊 Rock Health‘s H1 2026 report found US digital health funding hitting $7.4B across 244 deals, up from $6.4B last year, ft:
19 companies raised 20 mega deals ($100M+) in H1, now representing 45% of all capital invested
Mental health is the top-funded indication for the 7th year
Weight loss/GLP-1s are close behind, anchored by eMed, Nourish & Midi, with investor interest now spilling into adjacent peptide startups
AI alone is no longer a differentiator
No digital health IPOs yet in 2026, but Oura has filed its S-1 and Whoop’s $575M raise has it circling a public debut too
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Alighty, I’m disappearing on leave for a bit, but see you on the other side ✌️
👋 Emily,
Mariah & Team WTH
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