What You Should Know:

• XRHealth, the leading healthcare platform in Spatial computing, announces today that for the first time ever, a virtual reality headset will be sent to space to treat astronauts for mental health conditions during their next space mission targeted for launch on November 5th.
• XRHealth partnered with Nord-Space Aps and HTC VIVE to configure the VIVE Focus 3 headset to be compatible with the microgravity conditions of space.

Virtual Assistance Driven Mental Health Initiative for Astronauts in Space Missions

While on a space mission, astronauts live in isolation and in non-stimulating and highly stressful environments that could potentially lead to mental health conditions. To address this, Nord-Space Aps created a virtual assistance mental balance initiative aimed to address astronauts’ specific needs to maintain mental health while in orbit. Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen will be the first astronaut in space to use the VR headset for preventative care during his 6-8 month mission with NASA Crew-7.

“Astronauts are essentially isolated during their missions for months and years at a time and are confined to small spaces with limited contact with friends and family,” says Per Lundahl Thomsen, Chief Technology Officer at Nord-Space Aps. “Creating a virtual platform that addresses their mental health needs while in isolation is imperative for them to maintain a healthy lifestyle when they return. We partnered with companies that provide the most advanced technologies that could be adapted fo

The VR therapy will occur using the HTC VIVE Focus 3 headset equipped with a custom simulator mode designed to function effectively in a microgravity environment. Historically, employing a VR headset in such conditions presented significant challenges related to tracking and orientation. This was due to the constant jittering, rolling, and drifting of the content, leading to motion sickness and rendering the content in the headset unreadable for astronauts. In a microgravity setting, there are no natural gravity vectors to establish orientation, resulting in a gradual drift that rendered the VR headset both unusable and unstable. Previous ventures with different VR headsets encountered issues with losing tracking within just a few minutes of use. Collaboratively, Nord-Space Aps, HTC, and XRHealth undertook the task of engineering a VR platform capable of functioning in space by implementing a simulator mode and a specialized tracking methodology via the controllers.

What You Should Know:

•  9amHealth, the first-of-its-kind virtual cardiometabolic care clinic, is proud to announce its expansion into the health plan sector with a forward-looking partnership with Medicare Advantage plan, eternalHealth.
• This venture marks a significant milestone for 9amHealth as it brings its innovative and comprehensive care approach to the Medicare Advantage sector for the first time.

Enabling Improved Virtual Care Accessibility

The partnership with eternalHealth will enable its plan members to enjoy a seamless experience, eliminating the burden of coordinating a doctor’s office visit or a trip to the pharmacy or lab. 9amHealth offers at-home virtual care with unlimited access to an expert Care Team of physicians, pharmacists, nutritionists, and health coaches specializing in treating and preventing diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and obesity. Members can connect with their Care Team through their preferred method and at their schedule–via text, chat, or video. 

They also benefit from convenient at-home labs, connected medical devices, personalized care plans, and streamlined medication management with home delivery. Additionally, 9amHealth facilitates the sharing of clinical information, such as lab reports, with existing primary care physicians for a truly integrated experience. 

“Today’s announcement is a testament to 9amHealth’s dedication to redefining healthcare accessibility for our senior community,” says 9amHealth’s Co-CEO Anton Kittelberger. “We are excited to join forces with eternalHealth to provide their members with easy access to specialized care right from the comfort of their homes.”

With 9amHealth’s comprehensive care strategy, members can access specialized care regardless of their location. By aligning with plan formularies and providing alternative medication options, 9amHealth delivers the most affordable, clinically relevant treatment option. This combined approach positively impacts business-critical quality metrics like medication adherence and reducing acute instances that could otherwise lead to hospitalizations.

What You Should Know:

• Viome Life Sciences, a longevity company committed to translating scientific advancements into actionable and individualized health solutions, today announced the acquisition of Naring Health, a digital health and wellness company providing access to individualized clinical and molecular data to empower informed decisions.
• Under Naring Health, Viome will also be acquiring DiscernDX, a company making regular health monitoring, early disease detection, and personalized care a reality for every individual, and Foodome, a company that identifies all bioactive compounds in every food and uses network science to understand the connection between diet, genetic pathways, and diseases. 

Increasing Accessibility to Individualised Clinical and Molecular Data

“We’re entering a groundbreaking era of precision health, an era where every individual has the power to manage their unique nutritional needs effectively,” stated Viome founder & CEO Naveen Jain. “By acquiring entities whose visions align and complement ours, such as Naring Health, we’re advancing our commitment to making unprecedented health insights and actionable solutions increasingly attainable to all and with greater accuracy. We are driven by the goal to transform the paradigm of health through personalized nutrition, unveiling extraordinary insights that hold the key to preventing and reversing chronic diseases using food as medicine. 

By combining resources, including key patents and intellectual property, Viome has the ability to further enhance its suite of personalized health solutions with even more precise food and supplement recommendations. As two leaders in the health industry, the strategic acquisition is helping usher in a new age of personalized nutrition. It will grant customers access to the most comprehensive insights into what is going on in their bodies and how they can address issues at the root cause with personalized and precise nutrition. 

Both Viome and Naring Health share a common goal of providing personalized wellness tools that enable food to be used as medicine. While their strengths lie in slightly different areas – Viome focusing on the microbiome and Naring Health on multi-omics – they now unite under a shared vision of transforming healthcare through advanced, personalized solutions that are backed by data and science.

What You Should Know:

– AdaptX, a self-serve clinical management solution company raises $10M in funding led by Cercano Management and included participation from notable entities, such as Memorial Hermann Health System, Morningside Ventures, and returning investors Founders’ Co-op, Fortson VC, Star Equity, and WRF Capital.

The company’s focus is on using AI-driven technology to enable clinical leaders to make data-informed decisions and optimize patient care processes with a positive financial impact on healthcare institutions.

AI-Powered Self-Serve Clinical Management

AdaptX offers self-serve solutions designed to empower clinical leaders in assessing, enhancing, and managing patient care. They achieve this by leveraging data from electronic medical records (EMRs) to inform decision-making and care management. With the help of AdaptX, clinicians can quickly adapt treatments and workflows. This leads to improved patient care while simultaneously delivering an immediate return on investment (ROI) for healthcare institutions.

AdaptX plans to utilize the newly acquired funds to support its rapid growth and to further invest in its AI-driven technology known as Adaptive Clinical Management™.

What You Should Know:

• Suki, the leader in voice artificial intelligence (AI) technology for healthcare, today announces the expansion of its ambient clinical documentation solution to over 20 independent practices including Capital City Primary and Immediate Care, Silicon Valley Podiatry Group, Bay Area House Calls, Elite Foot and Ankle, Tinovus Health, and more.
• This news not only solidifies Suki as the leader in the space but showcases the growing demand for AI-powered tools that help lift the administrative burden of clinicians.

Ambient Clinical Documentation Solution to Cement the Growing Demand for AI-Powered Tools

Suki’s strong position in the market can be seen by its mass adoption across a variety of specialties. By providing a solution that is affordable, scalable, and easy to implement, Suki is lowering the barriers to entry for independent practices that have historically not been able to obtain this type of technology. It is leveraging generative AI to make a meaningful impact by assisting clinicians with tedious tasks such as notes, coding, patient information retrieval, and more.

“At Suki, we aim to design products and solutions that work in service of the clinician,” said Punit Soni, Suki CEO and founder. “We want our impact to be far-reaching and help as many people as possible which is why we are so proud of this progress. Larger health systems have the means to test new technologies, but those at smaller practices tend to be forgotten, yet are feeling the effects of burnout just the same. We have dedicated significant time and resources to making a solution that is powered by technology, not people, and integrates with commonly used EHRs, at a price point that is affordable to healthcare organizations of all sizes.”

This announcement comes off the heels of Suki’s entrance into inpatient care settings and the expansion of its ambient capabilities to be more personalized to each user. It listens to clinician-patient exchanges and generates suggestions in real time for the clinical note, taking into account user preference and existing workflows, such as relevant templates, to generate content accordingly. In addition to ambient, Suki has dictation and command modes, making it an all-in-one solution with unparalleled flexibility. Suki is also the only solution on the market that integrates with all major EHRs such as Epic, Cerner, Athena, Elation, and Meditech and works on iOS, Android, web, Windows, Mac, and as a Chrome extension.

What You Should Know:

• PhaseV a pioneer in causal machine learning (ML) technology that optimizes clinical trial design and analysis, announced today that it has raised $15 million in funding, led by Viola Ventures and Exor Ventures, including participation from LionBird and a group of prominent angel investors.
• A recent Deloitte study estimates the average cost of developing a single new drug at $2.3 billion in 2022, with an average 7.1 year deployment time. Moreover, the vast majority of drug candidates do not reach the finish line, and many fail the clinical phase even though the biology works.

Optimising Clinical Trial Design to Improve Overall Efficacy

PhaseV tackles this challenge by leveraging proprietary ML technology that provides clinical development teams an advanced ability to retrospectively analyze and optimally design studies, as well as adapt in real-time throughout the trial. This ML-driven adaptive process can significantly accelerate the clinical drug development process and increase certainty along the way, resulting in more efficient, targeted, and ultimately more successful clinical trials.

“Clinical trials are the most time-consuming and costly stages of drug development, and many trials fail due to inherent uncertainties and complexities in trial design and execution,” said Noam Ohana, Managing Director at Exor Ventures,“PhaseV has demonstrated its technological prowess and commitment to reshaping the landscape of clinical trial design and analysis to ensure that promising drugs reach their full potential.”

PhaseV offers two distinct service lines for AI clinical trial optimization. The first includes assessing the potential impact of adaptive trial design on the proposed study, followed by optimal design and execution. The second involves retrospective analysis that detects hidden signals in clinical trial data and evaluates endpoints and subpopulations to redefine success or failure of a trial. Leveraging a wide range of parameters, this multifaceted approach is also valuable for drug repurposing efforts. The company’s approach has proven valuable in a variety of therapeutic areas including oncology, endocrinology, autoimmune diseases, rare diseases and more. 

What You Should Know:

• SocialClimb, a leader in the patient acquisition industry, and IncludeHealth, a leading digital musculoskeletal (MSK) solution provider, today announced a partnership that promises to redefine the orthopedic patient marketing experience.
• Through this collaboration, SocialClimb’s orthopedic clientele will have access to a state-of-the-art digital self-assessment tool provided by IncludeHealth, that boosts online conversions and draws new patients to practices.

Redefining the Orthopedic Marketing Experience

“Our mission at SocialClimb has always been to enable our customers to attract the patients they need for growth, said Ty Allen, CEO of SocialClimb. “Bringing IncludeHealth’s patented computer vision capabilities into the marketing tools we offer is changing the way orthopedic patients engage with practices creating a differentiated patient experience.”

By combining SocialClimb’s reputation management and patient acquisition capabilities with IncludeHealth’s computer vision platform, orthopedic practices can now provide potential patients with a compelling initial online experience. This seamless interaction not only elevates patient trust, but also significantly boosts online conversion rates.

Patients simply click a link, select a focus area and are guided through IncludeHealth’s interactive movement assessment on their own device. Computer vision analyzes their movement, measures their range of motion and provides instant feedback. This creates an engaging first patient experience while also collecting meaningful health data that is shared with both the patient and the practice to determine appropriate next steps.

What You Should Know:

• Rymedi, a healthcare data exchange platform with advanced blockchain security, has announced a Series A totaling $9 million with plans to expand the reach of their platform.
• The round was co-led by RW3 Ventures and White Star Capital with participation from Blockchange Ventures, Avalanche’s Blizzard Fund, and strategic angel investors from the healthcare industry. Rymedi, which serves over 1 million patients in over 1,200 locations across the US, Africa, and Australia, will use the financing to increase data security and healthcare record accessibility for patients while reducing data entry errors and costs for healthcare data infrastructures on a global scale. 

Using Financing to Increase Data Security and Healthcare Record Accessibility

“We are always searching for great teams that are using blockchain technology to solve real-world problems with the potential to address global markets,” said Pete Najarian, Managing Partner of RW3 Ventures. “The Rymedi team and product suite fit that thesis perfectly, and we are delighted to be on this journey with them. While healthcare data management has remained inefficient and expensive, we believe Rymedi’s blockchain-based solution is having a meaningful impact on cost, connectivity, security, and user experience.”

The Rymedi platform, which currently supports Clemson University and many other large organizations throughout the world, removes the friction of a manual, paper filled operation to quickly connect with customers and patients and scale lab processes with higher testing throughput and lower total cost of ownership.

In the areas of occupational health, clinical trials, and laboratory information management systems, it automates data transfer with flexible interoperability, streamlines data entry with real-time results, and meets global regulatory compliance standards with unrivaled security. This is all made possible by Rymedi’s innovative blockchain-based backend, which is uniquely suited to facilitate data access across multiple parties and platforms. 

What You Should Know:

• Harmonic Health, announced the launch of its comprehensive, evidence-based, dementia care model that bridges gaps in care by bringing together advanced technology and an expert care team to partner with physician, to provide comprehensive care management and support patients and caregivers facing neurodegenerative diseases. 
• Harmonic launched its initial services with Stoney Batter Family Medicine, a trusted family medical practice serving over 24,000 patients within the Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland region.

Using Technology to Improve the Care of Patients with Neurodegenerative Diseases

Built at Redesign Health, Harmonic empowers and supports PCPs and neurologists in managing the impact of cognitive decline for Alzheimer’s, dementia and Parkinson’s patients. Utilizing a multidisciplinary approach, Harmonic addresses the medical, behavioral, and social aspects of dementia care. As part of the initial program pilot with Stoney Batter, Stoney Batter physicians and their patients receive dedicated dementia care expertise and resources that includes caregiver support and coaching, dementia screening, patient education, and referral for community services. Harmonic is seeing early program demand, with an 80% patient enrollment rate.

“I know from personal experience that the current situation for treating patients with neurodegenerative diseases is ineffective, unsupportive and deeply frustrating. Patients and caregivers lack support and physicians lack the resources to provide comprehensive care,” said Harmonic CEO and Co-Founder Jim Gera. “At Harmonic, our goal is to provide that missing support and bridge the gap in care by treating each patient and caregiver with candor, dignity and empathy while focusing care specifically through the lens of the disease.”

The U.S. is grappling with an unseen challenge from patients and families impacted by Alzheimer’s, dementia and Parkinson’s, with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services emphasizing dementia care as a major priority.  Currently, Alzheimer’s and other dementias affect over 6.7 million Americans, costing $655 billion annually. Despite the growing prevalence of these conditions, care and treatment options remain limited and fragmented. Primary care physicians (PCPs) face significant challenges in providing care with over 75% of these patients managed by their PCPs, and 50% of PCPs feeling unprepared to meet increased patient demand.

What You Should Know:

• Weave, a leading all-in-one experience platform for small and medium-sized healthcare practices, today announces the addition of AI-driven voicemail transcriptions to its Phones offering.
• Now available to Weave’s 27,000+ customers, Voicemail Transcription will enhance Weave Phones by automatically transcribing voicemails from patients, allowing for efficient, visible, and private reading experiences of voicemails. With this update, users will now see the voicemail transcription on the SMS & Email Notification page, improving overall user experience by making it faster to consume messages without having to listen to the audio, which can often be difficult in busy settings.

AI-Driven Voicemail Transcriptions to Enhance Private Reading Experiences of Voicemails

“AI has exploded in popularity over the past year, and we’re taking steps to ensure Weave is delivering state of the art offerings that empower our customers to enhance patient experiences and deliver top of the line care,” said Branden Neish, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Weave. “AI will only continue to grow in popularity and daily use, which will have a transformative impact on the future of the healthcare industry. Weave customers that have already implemented AI into their practices claim they save an average of an hour a day with the technology.”

This announcement follows months of AI-driven activity from Weave to enhance features that allow healthcare providers to deliver quality care and improve patient experiences. In a new customer and consumer report conducted by Weave, the company found that people are accepting of AI in healthcare settings and they see it leading to enhanced care and patient experiences. In fact, the majority of consumers (65%) are open to providers using AI tools in their practices. The report also found that consumers and providers are aligned with how they think AI will impact the healthcare industry, with two in three consumers (67%) and 3 in 4 (75%) healthcare providers believing that AI is likely to become a prevalent tool in healthcare.

What You Should Know:

• Carta Healthcare®, a company whose mission is to improve patient care by harnessing the value of clinical data, today announced the results of a survey measuring American perception and trust of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare.
• Propeller Insights conducted an online survey of 1,027 U.S. consumers between August 18 and August 29, 2023.

Evolving Public Perception of the Role of AI in Healthcare – Key Insights

The survey finds that on average, three out of four Americans do not trust AI in a healthcare setting. Nearly four out of five patients in the U.S. report not knowing if their provider is using AI; in reality, 100% of healthcare providers are using AI, and have been for a long time. This discrepancy illustrates the public’s misperception of the use of this technology, which is made evident by the 43% of respondents who admit there are limitations in their understanding of AI.

“The survey indicates that Americans are uncertain about AI in healthcare, and that the healthcare industry needs to educate Americans about the benefits of AI to improve trust and comfort with its use,” said Matt Hollingsworth, CEO, Carta Healthcare. “AI can help providers improve patient care and outcomes, but it will best succeed if patients understand that it’s used as an assistive tool, not as a replacement for human interpretation and decisions.”

Most Americans are unaware of AI usage but consider disclosure important. When it comes to AI in healthcare, 49% are comfortable with it, 51% are not, and 51% believe it can improve diagnostic accuracy, with 42% in disagreement. Trust in AI is low, with only 38% trusting it, but 47% are willing to learn more. Around 57% feel they understand AI in healthcare. The majority (80%) feel that disclosure about AI use is important for their comfort. Furthermore, 61% trust their providers to use AI properly, while 63% worry about less face time with healthcare providers due to AI. About 65% would be more comfortable if healthcare providers explained AI use, and 60% believe AI could help with healthcare worker shortages.

What You Should Know:

• Flatiron Health today announced a new agreement to bring Flatiron Assist™ advanced cancer care insights to oncology care clinicians at Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center (ACC).
• The collaboration between Flatiron Health and Penn Medicine will focus on further enabling clinicians at ACC to determine and promote site-preferred pathways and open clinical trials at the point of care alongside the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®). Access to evidence-based treatment recommendations will promote high levels of guideline-concordant care, while improving health equity and patient experiences and reducing unnecessary spending. The two organizations will also work together to optimize the usability and functionality of Flatiron Assist™.

Improving Access to Evidence-Based Treatment Recommendations

Flatiron Assist™ is an oncology-specific clinical decision support platform that prioritizes the latest evidence-based medicine, site-preferred pathways and clinical research at the point of care. The EHR-integrated platform incorporates NCCN Guidelines for the 26 most common cancers as well as site-preferred treatment pathways and relevant clinical trial opportunities for patients at the point of care.

Flatiron Assist™’s high provider adoption has driven positive outcomes for cancer centers, yielding results such as an 88% concordance with NCCN guidelines¹ and a 44% reduction in unique regimens ordered across cancer centers.²

“At Flatiron, we are committed to elevating clinical care and unlocking the power of patient data, so every person’s experience can inform and improve outcomes for future patients. Partnering with Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center, a market-leading cancer care provider and a pioneer of digital innovation in healthcare, enables us to use data for good and reimagine the infrastructure of cancer care,” said Julia Morton SVP and GM of Flatiron HC. “We are looking forward to working together to accelerate the delivery of more standardized, efficient, and effective cancer care across the entire health system.”

The project will also aim to leverage Flatiron Assist™ technology to increase awareness of clinical trial opportunities and drive user adoption and satisfaction. On average, Flatiron Assist™ users typically see 80% clinician adoption.⁴ The two organizations will track usage patterns and tie the results to financial impacts for the health system.

What You Should Know:

• Investigators from the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai found that an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm can detect an abnormal heart rhythm in people not yet showing symptoms.
• The algorithm, which identified hidden signals in common medical diagnostic testing, may help doctors better prevent strokes and other cardiovascular complications in people with atrial fibrillation-the most common type of heart rhythm disorder.

AI-Driven Algorithm to Detect Asymptomatic Arrhythmias

Approximately one-third of individuals with atrial fibrillation are unaware of their condition, which is characterized by chaotic electrical signals in the heart’s upper chambers, potentially leading to blood clots and strokes. Researchers developed an artificial intelligence system that examined electrocardiogram data, which tracks heart electrical activity. They trained this AI using almost a million electrocardiograms spanning from January 1, 1987, to December 31, 2022, from Veterans Affairs health networks. This algorithm accurately predicted atrial fibrillation in patients within a 31-day window and demonstrated similar success when tested on records from Cedars-Sinai.

What You Should Know:

• Pangea Biomed, the startup behind the innovative treatment response predictor, ENLIGHT, today announced its partnership with patient-centric advocacy organization FibroFighters to advance treatment for fibrolamellar carcinoma (FLC) patients.
• Fibrolamellar carcinoma (FLC) is a rare liver cancer that typically presents in young adolescents and young adults at a median age of 22 who have no history of liver disease. There is no clear standard of care for the disease, and in the setting of metastatic disease, 5-year survival rates are approximately 39 percent

Expanding Horizons in the Treatment for Fibrolamellar Carcinoma

“Since FLC makes up about 1% of all primary liver cancers, there is limited data on the disease, which impedes treatment,” said Pangea CEO Tuvik Beker, Ph.D. “Fortunately, by design, ENLIGHT is able to surface relevant insights specific to a patient’s tumor even without significant training datasets.”

Using ENLIGHT, which leverages unsupervised learning and sequenced tumor transcriptomics, Pangea will suggest treatments for FLC patients that FibroFighters work with, compare treatment response predictions against treatment outcomes, as well as with ex-vivo models, and refine models for treatment response and resistance. n December 2022, Pangea published a case study in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer on the ENLIGHT-matched treatment of an FLC patient. Despite common biomarkers for immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) coming back negative, the patient went into complete remission after being treated with an ENLIGHT-matched combination of ipilimumab (anti-CTLA4) and nivolumab (anti-PD-1).

What You Should Know:

• Today,  Nucleus RadioPharma the world’s first fully integrated development, manufacturing, and supply chain organization for radiopharmaceuticals has announced an oversubscribed $56 million Series A funding round led by Eclipse and GE HealthCare with participation from Echo Global, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Granger Management, Mayo Clinic, Mercy Health, and University of Missouri.
• With this round of funding, Nucleus RadioPharma will establish multiple new manufacturing facilities around the country, including Rochester, Minnesota, near Mayo Clinic, and build novel technology for the development, manufacturing, and distribution of radiopharmaceuticals.

Making Radiopharmaceuticals Increasingly Accessible Nationwide

Radiopharmaceuticals offer a highly targeted approach to a wide variety of cancer types and stages. “Conceivably, many cancers have the potential to be treated with a properly designed radiopharmaceutical and yet, very few patients with cancer are receiving this kind of treatment,” said Geoff Johnson, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of Nuclear Medicine, Mayo Clinic, and Chief Scientific Officer of Nucleus RadioPharma. Despite their promise, only a small fraction of patients are able to obtain these drugs due to limited production capacity and an outdated, fragmented supply chain. Nucleus RadioPharma was founded and built to ensure cancer patients can access potentially lifesaving radiopharmaceuticals by developing technologies to modernize the clinical development, manufacturing, and supply chain of these promising new therapies.

In addition to its manufacturing capabilities, Nucleus RadioPharma will shape the development of a new supply chain network designed to move, track, and deliver materials to patients faster and more efficiently. This network will cover the entire process, from identifying target molecules and testing treatments to supporting regulatory approvals and delivering patient-ready medication. Nucleus will bring life-saving treatments to an even broader patient base with the completion of multiple large regional sites. To enable global logistics and distribution of these therapies, the company is developing novel software and hardware technologies. 

Nucleus RadioPharma is positioned to expedite the availability of targeted radiopharmaceutical therapies through several ongoing partnerships and collaborations. These will enable rapid initiation of clinical trials, full support for formulation, analytical method development, regulatory guidance, and commercial manufacturing.