Tunstall funding by M&G, Barings passes European Commission ‘concentration’ review

September 2, 2020 | by

The European Commission, in a brief filing on EUR-Lex, has stated their ‘non-opposition’ to the ‘concentration’ in Tunstall Group Holdings’ additional funding obtained by M&G Investment Management and Baring Asset Management via share purchase. Tunstall announced this funding in April [TTA 10 April] and filed with the European Commission on 3 June (prior notification).

The definition of ‘concentration’ in the EU is the legal combination of two or more firms by merger or acquisition. The prior notification from the Commission considers that this concentration may fall within the scope of the Merger Regulations but reserved a decision on this.

Charterhouse Capital Partners, the prior controlling investor, is not mentioned in the prior notification. Revealed in the notification is that Baring is actually controlled by MassMutual in the US, a surprise to this Editor. Hat tip to a Reader in the UK industry who wishes to remain anonymous.

Tunstall partners with voice AI in EU, home health in Canada, update on Ripple alerter in US

November 17, 2017 | by

Tunstall Healthcare seems to be a recent convert to the virtues of partnership and not trying to do it all in-house. Here’s a roundup of their recent activity in three countries with advanced technology developers. 

Perhaps the most advanced is conversational computing, which with Siri and Alexa is the 2017-2018 ‘IT Girl’, albeit prone to a few gaffes.  The European Commission is incentivizing the development of the next generation of interactive conversational artificial intelligence to assist older adults to live independently within their home. The largest award of €4m is going to Intelligent Voice, a speech recognition company based in London. The EMPATHIC project will develop a conversational ‘Personalized Virtual Coach’ with partners including Tunstall and the University of Bilbao, as well as several other companies and academic organizations in seven European nations. Digital Journal

On the other side of the Atlantic, Tunstall is partnering with TELUS Health in Toronto. TELUS will use Tunstall’s ICP Integrated Care Platform with remote patient monitoring and videoconference telehealth capabilities to monitor patients in their network. Apparently, this is the first use of the ICP in the Americas, as previous deployments have been in Europe, Australasia, and China. It is also additive to TELUS’ own capabilities. TELUS itself is a conglomerate of healthcare tech, with EHRs, analytics, consumer health, claims/benefits management, and pharmacy management. TELUS release.

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/ripplenetwork_5890862790fc7.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]This Editor also followed up with the CEO of Ripple, the smart-looking compact alerter targeted to a younger demographic that would dial 911 in emergency situations through a smartphone app or for a subscription fee, connect to Tunstall’s call center network. It was Americas’ CEO Casey Pittock’s last move of note back in February. In June, with his departure, a check of Kickstarter and social media indicated that Ripple also disappeared. Last month, after reaching out to their founder/CEO Tim O’Neil, it was good to hear that this was quite wrong. Ripple was featured on HSN on 23 September (release) and joined that month with Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and first lady Susan Snyder at the End Campus Sexual Assault Summit. On the new website, it’s priced as an affordable safety device: $19 for one unit connecting to an app to push notifications, plus $10 monthly for 24/7 live monitoring through Tunstall. A discreet alert device that has a jewelry-type look, pares safety down to the essentials, and extends safety coverage to the young does have something on the ball.

 

Digital health dates for Autumn 2016

July 21, 2016 | by

Fancy a startup in Barcelona? Look no further than the NUMA Barcelona Accelerator. Note entries needed by 25th September.

The Biomedical Catalyst 2016 early stage award competition requires registrations by 7th September, applications in by 14th September.

The European Commission has opened a public consultation on the safety of apps and other non-embedded software as part of an effort to ensure a high level of health, safety and consumer protection. Be sure to respond by closing date of 14th September.

Baker Botts, the international firm of lawyers specialising in intellectual property has very kindly agreed to continue to support the London Health Technology Forum which has now agreed three evening events this autumn, on 15th September, 20th October & 24th November. The programmes are (more…)

RSM’s Medical Apps one-day conference 9th April – last call

March 30, 2015 | by

The next RSM event, entitled “Mainstreaming medical apps; reducing NHS costs; improving patient outcomes” is on 9th April, where there are still a few spaces left. This one-day conference will build on the last two years’ sell-out one-day conferences on medical apps at the RSM.

This year as medical apps are coming of age, the focus is on the critical aspects of mainstreaming them, in particular the various UK and EU regulatory issues that need managing in order to enable apps to be recommended or prescribed with confidence by clinicians. This will also include examples of ground- breaking medical apps as well as the use of electronic games to promote health and wellbeing.

Speakers on the regulatory side include, from the UK Professor Gillian Leng, Deputy Chief Executive of NICE, and Jo Hagan-Brown & Dr Neil McGuire from the MHRA, and from the European Commission Pēteris Zilgalvis, Head of Unit for Health and Well-being. Julian Hitchcock from lawyers Lawford Davies Denoon will give another of his excellent talks summarising the regulatory position from a user’s point of view, Dr Richard Brady will update us on bad apps and Julie Bretland will describe progress on the National Information Board’s work on how best to evaluate medical apps.

From the patient perspective, Alex Wyke will be talking about developing guidelines for good practice in health apps and Dr Tom Lewis from Warwick (in place of Prof Jeremy Wyatt now sadly unable to attend) will be talking about how best to evidence benefits from apps.

Describing some novel apps will be Professor Ray Meddis, on how to make an iPhone a hearing aid, Professor Susan Michie from UCL on gamification of smoking cessation, Ileana Welte from big White Wall on why mental health is such fertile ground for apps, and Ian Hay describing the challenges of using Android apps to deliver artificial pancreas-like functionality for the GSMA Brussels to Barcelona bike ride.

Should be a great day, and at the RSM’s rates, a tiny fraction of the cost of a commercially-run event!

Book here

Supplier offer

For £50/table, the RSM is also offering SMEs the opportunity to demonstrate their medical apps to the professional audience during refreshment breaks and at lunch (for more information on this offer contact Charlotte on 0207 290 3942). There are just four tables left now.

Telemedicine getting out of the waiting room–perhaps

October 13, 2014 | by

Will reimbursement by insurance payers and private employers (presumably self-insured) and a greater comfort level with the video consult mean that telemedicine will finally step out of the waiting room? This Economist article (free registration may be required) with high points from a recent Rome conference seems to not be able to make up its mind, though it tries to be positive. Taking a comparative view, Israel leads with ‘relatively lax guidelines’, with doctors able to e-prescribe and perform referrals to specialists online. China’s health-care reform focuses on telemedicine“, but Peteris Zilgalvis, a health official at the European Commission pointedly states “If you have a chaotic system and add technology, you get a chaotic system with technology” (Editor’s emphasis). The US is somewhere in between (more…)