Actually this Editor added the ‘Top’ to the Digital Health 150, as it emulates the Top 40 or Top 100 when Music Radio ruled, but Billboard or Melody Maker would hardly recognize the format. CB Insights evaluates the promising, primarily US digital health startups from its research. It’s their second Digital Health 150 and like last year’s, it organizes the aspiring hot companies into groups and sub-groups. Many companies are repeats, though the categories are different than last year’s, reflecting a change in what is considered ‘hot’:

• Administrative automation and digitization
• Disease management and therapeutics
• Screening and diagnostics
• Drug discovery
• Clinical trials
• Clinical intelligence and enablement
• Online-offline care
  • Primary and urgent care
  • Specialty care
• Pharma supply chain
• Health plans and benefit management
• Real-world evidence (RWE)
• Virtual care delivery

Telehealth is hot (of course) in the Online-Offline and Virtual Care categories. CB Insights singles out in telemedicine Heartbeat Health, Doctor On Demand, and Livi (UK) (Kry in the Nordics), while in remote monitoring they named Oura (a ring), Element Science (a cardiac wearable), and Dental Monitoring (a dental treatment/care management platform different than The Teledentists). We also noted Parsley Health’s NY clinics and VillageMD, a Chicago-based primary care provider group which just inked a major deal with Walgreens Boots [TTA 9 July]. Early-stage companies do well when they have big partnerships. 

CB Insights also provided a compare/contrast summary against the 2019 Digital Health list [TTA 10 Oct 19]:

• Unicorns: 17 of the 2019 Digital Health 150 (11%) have remained or since become unicorns with a $1B+ valuation
• Exits: 2 companies have gone public and 2 have been acquired
• Deals, funding, and mega-rounds:  raised over $4bn across 70+ deals, including 14 mega-rounds ($100 million+ investments), as of 10 August

They do not mention that one, Proteus Digital Health, one of those unicorns, went bankrupt this year and was sold on Wednesday for its IP for $15 million.

2020 Digital Health 150

Now the equivalent of Mrs. Astor’s Four Hundred? CB Insights has entered the list game with a brand new listing of digital health startups, the Digital Health 150, no ballroom needed–perhaps a convention hall? They are classified, sliced, and diced as follows:

Broad categories:

• Digital therapeutics
• Pharma supply chain
• Insurance and benefits
• Genomics
• Consumer health and wellness
• Providers: administrative tools, specialty care, primary care, clinical tools
• Diagnostics: imaging, pathology, other diagnostics
• Drug R&D: drug discovery and development, clinical trials, real-world evidence

Another slice is by deal stage from 2014 (the receding of seed funding and progression into Series B and C is notable), top well-funded companies, and ‘unicorn startups’. Unlike Rock Health, CB Insights also looks at where in the world the startups are from: 116 in the 150 from the US, 17 from Asia, 16 from Europe, and 1 from Canada (League employee health benefits).

Many of the usual suspects are here: 23andMe, Babylon Health (UK), American Well, Doctor on Demand, Proteus Digital Health, Iora Health, MDLive, Oscar, One Medical, the relentlessly advertised (in US) Noom, TytoCare, China’s WeDoctor and GoodRx (which last month acquired telemedicine provider HeyDoctor).  Others are surprising in various aspects: the new well-wired Medicare Advantage company Devoted Health, Let’s Get Checked (Ireland, though they list their HQ as NY on website), Protenus (breach tracking), Kry (Nordic/LIVI in UK), Zava (UK), Teckro (Ireland), AbleTo, Higi, ClearCare, and CarePredict. It’s nice to see nods to the un-sexy areas of senior telecare, home care, and cognitive health. CB Insights page