What the experts reckon is gonna go down in healthtech town... 2023 and beyond
What the experts reckon is gonna go down in healthtech town... 2023 and beyond
Who doesn't love terrible prediction cliches
Back in Jan, I considered writing the compulsory cliche predictions piece.
But then, realised I’m boring. So, reached out to a host of actually smart folk (aka veteran investors, founders, health professionals & industry experts) asking their thoughts on what the future of health, health tech & innovation holds.
Cause Is there anything more fun than looking back at what you thought might happen, and seeing how dumb you were? Or - shooting your shot and having proof you called it?
To my surprise, a bunch of them actually replied. I was going to put it into a schmick piece.
Then life happened, and I got v sick and lost my brain. Nonetheless - we got here. And these smart folk’s insights are still more relevant than ever.
So, without further ado - here’s some fun healthtech predictions coming at you…
But first, some Events (yay) 🥳
Brissy - it’s long overdue, but we’re finally having our first QLD event!
Thanks to the epic Brissy-based WTHers
You know the deal (hopefully)… A fun chillaxed evening with bevs, bants, and brilliant humans from all corners of the health, tech, and innovation sphere.
📅 Wed May 17th
⏰ 5.30 pm onwards
📍Brissy
🍷 Free bevs (well, before the tab runs out)
💜 Brought to you with the epic VALD & Medibank
Keen?
PS - Melbourne, it’s been a minute and we miss you… 💕So here’s an event for you too!
Come join us for some old-school sociable drinks to meet other legends from all parts of the Melbourne healthtech & innovation sphere... all welcome!
📅 Wed 17th May
⏰ 5.30 pm - 8 pm
🗺 CBD
🍷 Bevs
💜 Brought to you by the epic AWS & Medibank
Know someone who might be keen to come to one of these? Flick it their way!
So, predictions. I posed these 3 Qs…
1. What do you think 2023 (& 2024) has in store for health tech and innovation in Aus? And/or globally?
2. What are you most excited about in the space?
3. (OPTIONAL) In 10 years, what do you think healthcare will look like
And here’s what they had to say…
(Keep in mind, these responses are from Jan… let’s judge away hey…)
💻 Dr Simon Kos - Chief Medical Officer (Aus & NZ), Microsoft
What do you think 2023 has in store for health tech and innovation in Aus? And, globally?
2023 will be the year that AI goes mainstream, fuelled by consumer interest in generative AI through services like Chat GPT. Resulting in all sorts of use-cases of authoring and automation, that will stretch our thinking. We’ll find some gems, make some mistakes, but ultimately push digital health along significantly.
It will reignite the debate about patient centricity and consumer expectations of service delivery. This in turn will lend support for some of the reactionary digital health pilots undertaken during COVID to become enduring changes in our models of care.
Telehealth is here to stay, but increasingly will be augmented by other virtual care modalities including remote patient monitoring, chronic disease management informed by population health analytics, and a greater focus on digital therapeutics for mental health.
What are you most excited about in the space?
Health equity is the most exciting theme for me in recent times. In particular, how can digital be a platform to scale access to health services for vulnerable populations? I think about the barriers to care faced by the elderly, mobility impaired, geographically distant, impoverished, and culturally diverse, and I believe we have all the answers in our digital toolkit. I want to be inspired as we make meaningful progress for these groups, and be proud that I played a little part in making it happen.
In ten years, what do you think healthcare will look like?
If health AI is the frontier we explore in 2023, I think robotics will make a tremendous difference by 2033. Everything from surgical robots, to supply chain, from patient services in hospital to companions for the isolated. With the double-shift of AI augmenting our cognitive ability, and robotics augmenting our physical capabilities, we will solve for one of the greatest bottlenecks in healthcare – workforce.
🏥 Ben Hurst - CEO & Co-founder, HotDoc
What do you think 2023 has in store for health tech and innovation in Aus? And, globally?
I predict a huge boon in AI powered health tech businesses. But also predict that few of them will succeed unless they are very focused on the problem that they are solving, as opposed to the tech wave (hype cycle) they are riding.
What are you most excited about in the space?
Anything that focuses on self efficacy. So much of healthcare is about reactive treatment of the patient's condition. There is so much opportunity in helping patients just look after themselves better.
In ten years, what do you think healthcare will look like?
Every patient will have an AI powered patient assistant / health coach. Every doctor will have an AI powered physician assistant. There will be more hospital inpatients being treated at home than in the hospital.
😇 Ben Armstrong - Founder & Managing Partner, ArchAngel Ventures
What do you think 2023 has in store for health tech and innovation in Aus? And, globally?
2023 should see more ambition out of Australia to challenge the traditional models of healthcare delivery and potentially create major innovation for consumers and the health system as a whole.
Unfortunately, innovation continues to be seen as a threat to many incumbents, and with limited health focused investors in Australia, many of these models will either not get local funding or will get less funding than optimal, which will inhibit their growth. Incremental improvements will continue to get support particularly around practice improvements, digital therapeutics, new medical techniques, equipment and drugs.
The constant search for 'magical pills' to solve issues that are lifestyle and personal accountability issues will continue. Fingers crossed that more great companies manage to break out of Australia and make a global impact.
What are you most excited about in the space?
Models that fundamentally change the status quo are most interesting to me but they are also the hardest to deliver!
Companies like HeidiHealth, Vively, CoTreat, and Telecare are interesting as they promise to bring together a passion to improve the consumer experience, deep industry experience, lessons from a big data set (big data/AI) and automation / personnel efficiency to primary care, dental care and hospital care respectively.
🚀 Dina Titkova -Senior Program Manager MedTech & Portfolio, UNSW Founders
What do you think 2023 has in store for health tech and innovation in Aus? And, globally?
Australia consistently leads in global research inputs, with Australia ranking 23rd (of 131) countries/economies overall and have produced great research-based success stories – Medtronic (140M patients reached, 8K employees, $50B market cap) and Cochlear (400K patients served, $12B market cap, 4500 employees). Both are brilliant examples of research-based startups where innovations were developed in close collaboration with clinicians.
However, as of today translation of research into commercialisation outcomes lag in comparison, with Australia ranking 31st in innovation outputs and 40th in knowledge and technology outputs in the 2020 WIPO Global Innovation Index. And there’s an apparent gap to move from research stage to translation.
What are you most excited about in the space?
I am excited to be able to support more research-based, deeptech and clinician-led health startups on their journey.
Cultural change is fundamental to driving health innovation translation and it is in the air, with more health researchers and clinicians getting interested in other pathways to impact beyond traditional career limitations and choose to learn entrepreneurial skills, founding/joining/ investing into startups to accelerate health innovation journey from “lab bench to patient bed”.
Startups are now seen as another pathway to impact! Universities now recognize a value of entrepreneurial capability building for medical professionals. Clinicians can access various trainings funded by both State and Federal Governments. Funding is another building block and I am cautiously optimistic that we will see more investment into early stage health startups over coming years.
I believe we will see an increasing number of clinician-led and/or research-based startups in the future, addressing real unmet medical needs via innovative solutions.
In ten years, what do you think healthcare will look like?
Patient-centered, with both healthcare professionals and patients empowered by technology, hopefully more investment into prevention space!
👨⚕️ Dr Tom Kelly - Co-Founder & CEO, Heidi Health
What do you think 2023 has in store for health tech and innovation in Aus? And, globally?
We see a wave of Australian clinics beginning to go online with their practices following the examples abroad from One Medical and Carbon Health, as general practice clinics look to diversify their patient offerings with pressure from all signs on the viability of their business model.
In the US towards the end of 23' we begin to see massive down rounds and startups doing online-only telehealth shut as the overfunded COVID companies wash out of the ecosystem, leaving the opportunity for true hybrid models that do online and in-person really well to take their place. One wildcard prediction - we see Apple introduce Sepsis alerts for Apple Watch wearers.
What are you most excited about in the space?
Really excited to see the potent mix of increasingly detailed physiological sensing and AI as the Nutromics, Whoops, CGMs etc. that have been worked on for years escape regulatory hurdles and begin to reach the market. These companies will partner with care providers to create longitudinal datasets and train models to predict and monitor a myriad of chronic conditions to fundamentally change the gold standard management of chronic disease.
In ten years, what do you think healthcare will look like?
Value-based care models will dominate primary care, with providers being incentivised solely from the outcome of their patients - modality of care will no longer dictate funding. In most OECD countries there will be Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants, MAs etc. with an increased scope of practice. Most patients will take GLP-1 or other incretin-modifying medicines as they prove to be a blockbuster drug like Statins and Metformin for longevity.
Gene therapies like CRISPR will have cured most point mutation diseases like Duchenne's muscular dystrophy. Pharma companies will do drug R&D with AI-powered simulations of cells, tissues and organs before ever getting into a wet lab. Clinicians increasingly rely on tools like Heidi to support diagnosis, investigation and management of their patients with software doing personalisation. In hospitals every Category 3 and 4 patient will have their history taken by AI before seeing a clinician with low acuity issues dealt with on telehealth.
🧪 Dr Katja Beitat - Head of Health Tech, Cicada Innovations
What do you think 2023 has in store for health tech and innovation in Aus? And, globally?
In 2023, we will see a consolidation of early stage innovation in the health tech space, with "fundable" research and innovation that is properly validated and can clearly articulate a commercial or translational pathway still having access to funding, whilst those who do not pay attention to the translational and/or commercial value of their work will see their funding journey becoming even more difficult.
What are you most excited about in the space?
I personally am very excited by the opportunity of AI as an enabler of more sophisticated devices, diagnostic tools and personalised digital therapeutics. The challenge in my view is the current lack of a common validation framework for many of these solutions that would also lead to a reimbursement model for validated solutions.
But we have the model working in Germany and other countries, so I hope we are adopting some of their learnings here in Australia. My optimism is a bit dampened by the realisation that we still have not figured out the absolute baseline of that which is data interoperability working in reality with data sovereignty staying with the individual person.
In ten years, what do you think healthcare will look like?
I sincerely hope that we will see a complete reverse of the preventative and akute health sectors. This will be driven by ubiquitous sensing that allows people to create a digital twin, with AI allowing constant monitoring of environmental; lifestyle and other health factors and guiding individually tailored preventative behaviour for a better wellbeing. Well that's the dream as long as the data stays with the individual until they want to share it :)
💰Sarah Meibusch - Partner, OneVentures &
💬 Carolyn Miller - Head of Marketing & Communications
What do you think 2023 has in store for health tech and innovation in Aus? And, globally?
From an investment POV:
Globally, there is still a significant amount of available capital for new and innovative health tech companies, and early-stage companies in this sector received record levels of investment in 2022, which is expected to continue. However, there was a decline in later-stage raises compared to the highs of 2021, similar to the rest of the venture capital industry. According to SVB, Series B activity in the health tech sector steadily declined in 2022, with a lower percentage of companies raising a Series B after a Series A.
Later-stage deal sizes were also down, with US$200M+ financings dropping by 65% from 2021, and unicorn formation decreased by more than half from 44 in 2021 to 18 in 2022. From what I have seen the trend appears to be continuing in 2023, with no significant changes expected until the latter part of the year. However, early-stage investing is less affected by the global financial challenges impacting latter-stage investing and this is particularly the case for Australian companies, many of which are early stage.
Health tech companies seeking to raise later rounds are facing mounting pressure from global investors to demonstrate successful conversion from pilot programs to commercial contracts, along with well-defined unit economics and profitability plans. Investors are also seeking concrete evidence of improved clinical outcomes or cost-effectiveness and evidence that early companies understand the complexities of the US market especially, and the extent of competition in that market, and have clear go to market strategies with sustainable competitive advantages. In response, some companies are opting for Series A extensions or convertible insider bridges to buy more time to achieve these critical milestones and this we believe will continue in 2023.
A big trend is consumer focused wellness moving to embrace digital therapeutics that are backed by robust clinical trials, FDA drug approval and high reimbursement – with the initial opportunity focused on the U.S. market. This field is starting to evolve initially in spaces like mental health and obesity, orthopaedics, pain, cardiac health and diabetes.
For the health tech industry more broadly:
We expect many health tech companies to focus on innovation that improves personalisation in healthcare, such as genomic sequencing and the ability to prescribe and monitor treatments that are customised to the individual.
We also see the growth in patient centric innovation and the need for tech platforms that connect multiple physicians, therapists, insurers and the patient in a seamless ecosystem. Vertical integration won’t be enough for the future of patient care, it will need to have full 360 integration.
We believe that maintaining wellness, preventative healthcare and the growth of self-care monitoring devices will only continue to gain consumer interest.
What are you most excited about in the space?
We see health tech as a broad space with a continuum from SAAS businesses focused on the healthcare provider operations, alternative care models and clinical trial management through to solutions focused on the individual wellness and education, medication management and digital therapeutics and devices that are diagnosing and treating specific diseases.
Australian companies that are focused on tackling large global markets with truly competitive and disruptive technologies will continue to be those that are at the top of the list for funding locally and globally. It requires deep understanding of the healthcare system in the larger markets such as the US combined with innovative digital solutions and business models. We get excited when we see a large unmet market need, and a company with a creative solution getting traction for example with a creative customer acquisition strategy with a disruptive technology that is difficult to replicate or a digital device or therapeutic that has a robust clinical data and regulatory and reimbursement strategy.
In ten years, what do you think healthcare will look like?
In 10 years, the interface of tech and biotech / healthcare delivery will be far more evolved and much more user friendly. We believe that companies will be focussed very sharply on evidence-based, cost-effective technology that can provide value both economically but also in terms of patient outcomes. At the patient delivery end, technology that aids in assessing outcomes, drug compliance and behavioural support will be used frequently to keep patients engaged and provide accurate clinical data. Also, we see innovation in tech that will aid in collection and monitoring of Phase 4 RWE data.
In the discovery phase for new healthcare treatments, there is certainly promise of AI accelerating drug discovery. Since 1995, the FDA has authorised more than 500 AI-enabled medical devices, with 91 approved in 2022 alone. This is a growing trend, and we would expect that AI will permeate the healthcare industry (amongst many other industries), but also create challenges in terms of data management, security, triaging of incoming data and ultimately data outputs. In summary we’d see the health tech in the next 10 years delivering:
More personalised
More digitalised
Cost efficiencies - particularly in the US driving down the costs of healthcare delivery thanks to pressures on the system
Some amazing new therapies and devices approved changing the health outcomes of patients
🔥 Ben Forbes - Head of Commercial & Community, Aginic Ventures
What do you think 2023 (& 2024) has in store for health tech and innovation in Aus? And/or globally?
We’re expecting to see a huge growth in consumer led healthcare companies coming to market over the next year or two. We’re of the view that the healthtech businesses that will smash it the most will be ones that can horizontally integrate across the patient and primary care provider landscapes - to drive a new frontier of care delivery. We have a way to go, but the future's looking bright. We’re stoked that we're playing a small role in this on behalf of the Aus healthtech community.
What are you most excited about in the space?
We’re excited to see a genuine integration between 3rd party healthtech applications and core provider management systems. There’s more funding heading into the digital health space, and we’re seeing the emergence of companies like Halo Connect supporting secure information sharing between healthcare applications.
An integrated infrastructure layer will be the backbone for a range of epic consumer-led digital native health companies to shake things up for the better! We’re also excited to see a greater commitment from the Federal Government for funding advances geared towards primary care. Including initiatives such as strengthening the medicare benefits schedule so that practices can afford to bolster their offerings with other new and game changing healthtech applications.
JOKING…
What do you think the future of health in Aus & globally has in store? And what do you think of the experts’ insights?
💌 Hit reply! I’d love to know
👀 PS - YOU SHOULD TOTALLY APPLY FOR THE PRIVATE COMMUNITY (if you haven’t already). Its the crew shaping the future together.
Ok, have an epic Friyay
👋 Emily
With thanks to our partners 💜
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