Medopad rebrands, pivots as Huma, acquires BioBeats and TLT, names Alan Milburn as chairman (UK)

April 17, 2020 | by

Medopad, a London-based software developer for healthcare specializing in digital biomarkers generated by wearables and apps, has rebranded as Huma and, with the brand splash, announced the acquisition of two companies:

  • BioBeats, a London-based mental health monitoring app and wearable combination that tracksheart rate, activity, sleep, mood, and cognitive function to create a wellbeing model.
  • Tarilian Laser Technologies (TLT), based in Welwyn Garden City, is a developer of continuous blood pressure and cardiovascular non-invasive measurement technologies. Their assets include patents, software, and hardware awaiting US FDA approval.

Purchase details were not disclosed, but TechCrunch’s sources indicate a $10 million deal for BioBeats.

Joining Huma is former UK Health Minister The Right Honourable Alan Milburn as chairman of its board of directors.

Medopad announced last November a Series B raise of $25 million led by Leaps by Bayer, Bayer AG’s venture capital arm which also participated in their earlier Series A (CityAM/Crunchbase). Medopad’s focus to date has been primarily with life sciences companies to predict disease risk, condition progression, and diagnosis for chronic diseases including Parkinson’s (based on monitoring finger movements, in partnership with China’s Tencent), Alzheimer’s and diabetes. Which does make the pivot surprising, given the financing origin.

The Huma rebranding is accompanied by the usual quotes from the founder/CEO to explain the pivot from disease states to the ‘wellbeing’ sphere and Huma being reflective of humanity (see the daVinci-esque logo). The release quotes are also in Mobihealthnews Europe/UK (along with an unexplained doubling of their Series B raise; their total funding is $50 million). The release also lists offices in New York at the Genome Center on lower 6th Avenue and Shanghai. Hat tip to reader Paul Costello

News roundup: docs dim on AI without purpose, ‘medtail’ a mall trend, CVS goes SDH, Kvedar to ATA, Biden ‘moonshot’ shorts out, and Short Takes

July 27, 2019 | by

Docs not crazy about AI. And Dog Bites Man. In Medscape‘s survey of 1,500 doctors in the US, Europe, and Latin America, they are skeptical (49 percent-US) and uncomfortable (35 percent-Europe, 30 percent-Latin America). Only 20 percent fess up to actually using an AI application, and aren’t crazy about voice tech even at home. Two-thirds are willing to take a look at AI-powered tech if it proves to be better than humans at diagnosis, but only 44 percent actually believe that will happen. FierceHealthcare

This dim view, in the estimation of a chief analytics and information officer in healthcare, Vikas Chowdhry, is not the fault of AI nor of the doctors. There’s a disconnect between the tech and the larger purpose. “Without a national urgency to focus on health instead of medical care, and without scalable patient person-centered reforms, no technology will make a meaningful impact, especially in a hybrid public goods area like health.” The analogy is to power of computing–that somehow when we focused behind a goal, we were able to have multiple moon missions with computing equivalent to a really old smartphone, but now we send out funny cat videos instead of being on Mars. (And this Editor growing up in NJ thought the space program was there to market Tang orange drink.) HIStalk.

Those vacant stores at malls? Fill ’em with healthcare clinics! And go out for Jamba Juice after! CNN finally caught up with the trend, apparent on suburbia’s Boulevards and Main Streets, that clinics can fill those mall spots which have been vacated by retail. No longer confined to ‘medical buildings’, outpatient care is popping up everywhere. In your Editor’s metro area, you see CityMDs next to Walmarts, Northwell Health next to a burger spot, a Kessler Health rehab clinic replacing a dance studio, and so on. The clever name for it is ‘medtail’, and landlords love them because they sign long leases and pay for premium spots, brighten up dim concourses, and perhaps stimulate food court and other shopping traffic. Of course, CVS and Aetna spotted this about years ago in their merger but are working expansion in the other direction with expanding CVS locations and on the healthcare side, testing the addition of social determinants of health (SDH) services via a pilot partnership, Destination: Health with non-profit Unite Us to connect better with community services. This is in addition to previous affordable housing investments and a five-year community health initiative. Forbes, Mobihealthnews

ATA announces Joseph Kvedar, MD, as President-Elect. Dr. Kvedar was previously president in 2004-5 and replaces John Glaser, PhD, Executive Senior Advisor, Cerner. He will remain as Vice President of Connected Health at Partners HealthCare and Professor of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School. A question mark for those of us in the industry is his extensive engagement with October’s Connected Health Conference in Boston, one of the earliest and now a HIMSS event. ATA’s next event is ATA2020 3-5 May 2020 in Phoenix–apparently no Fall Forum this year.

The Biden Cancer Initiative has shut down after two years in operation. This spinoff of the White House-sponsored ‘moonshot’ initiative was founded after the death of Beau Biden, son of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden. Both Mr. Biden and wife Jill Biden withdrew due to ethics concerns in April. According to Fortune, the nonprofit had trouble maintaining momentum without their presence. However, the setup invited conflict of interest concerns. The Initiative engaged and was funded by pharmas and other health tech companies, directly for Initiative support but mainly for indirect pledges to fund research. Most of these organizations do business with Federal, state and local governments. Shortly after the formal announcement, Mr. Biden the Candidate announced a rural health plan to expand a federal grant program to include rural telehealth for mental health and specialized services. Politico   But isn’t that already underway with the FCC’s Connected Care Pilot Program, coming to a vote soon? [TTA 20 June]

And…Short Takes

  • Philips Healthcare bought Boston-based patient engagement/management start-up Medumo. Terms not disclosed. CNBC
  • London’s Medopad launched with Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT) in a three-year RPM deal. DigitalHealthNews
  • Parks Associates’ Connected Health Summit will be again in San Diego 27-29 August with an outstanding lineup of speakers. More information and registration here.

And in other news, Matt Hancock holds tight to his portfolio as UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in the newly formed Government under new PM Boris Johnson. Luckier than the other 50 percent!

 

 

News roundup: Phreesia’s IPO, Chiptech enters UK telecare market, PatientsLikeMe goes to UHG, Medopad-Tencent UK Parkinson’s pilot, Oxford VR goes to HK, Cigna Singapore’s telehealth intro, HIMSS exiting Cleveland

June 27, 2019 | by

Patient check-in tablet Phreesia is preparing for an IPO, filing of its S-1 form this week. The number of shares and pricing is not yet announced. Phreesia, which specializes in patient intake in the office via a rugged PhreesiaPad tablet and software that integrates with major EHRs such as Epic, Cerner, and Allscripts, has survived not only 14 years, but also in New York City. Phreesia has enjoyed a relatively low profile on the health tech scene, yet it has raised close to $100 million through a Series D (Crunchbase) and maintained much the same founding leadership (Chaim Indig, Evan Roberts, Michael Weintraub). Their business includes 1,600 health firms and 70 million patient intakes annually, for $100 million in revenue in its last fiscal year, up 25 percent from previous. Timing of the IPO is not yet forecast. Mobihealthnews, Business Insider.

Coming to the UK and Europe markets are New Zealand’s Chiptech telecare systems. Chiptech has both traditional in-home and mobile monitored PERS, pill dispensers, and a smartphone-based lone worker alert device. According to their website, they are the leading provider of monitored personal alarms in Australasia. Chiptech also announced a new CEO, veteran David Hammond, whose background includes leadership roles at UTC and Chubb. 

In M&A news, UnitedHealth Group bought the contested PatientsLikeMe, which runs an online service that helps patients find people with similar health conditions. PatientsLikeMe had raised $100 million in 2017, selling a majority stake to Shenzhen-based iCarbonX, backed by Chinese giant Tencent. That investment put the company under scrutiny by CFIUS–Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. CFIUS is especially looking at Chinese investment in companies that deal with sensitive data, trade secrets, and national security–and coming down hard. Companies like Tencent are working with the Chinese government to amass millions of patient records and data points, with no regard for consent, and to build massive medical databases [TTA 17 Apr].

Tencent has multiple strategic investments in data-driven health companies, including an interesting Parkinson’s clinical trial in the UK with London startup Medopad, which developed an app that tests cognitive abilities across a series of tasks and captures it into what’s dubbed the Markerless Motion Capture and Analysis System (MMCAS). It is being tested on about 40 patients at a private mental health clinic in London called (appropriately) Dementech Neurosciences. Forbes

Mental health is hot, and Oxford VR, a spinout of Oxford University, is pairing with AXA HK and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) to develop treatments for common mental health conditions such as social avoidance, anxiety and depressive symptoms. ‘Yes I Can’ uses virtual reality (VR) sessions over three to six weeks. In the true Chinese model (it’s free, but you don’t control where your data goes), it will also be offered to AXA’s corporate customers as part of their employee benefits services to drive better mental health outcomes in Asia. Mobihealthnews

Elsewhere in Asia-Pacific, Cigna Singapore launched a telemedicine service, Cigna Virtual Clinic, where users can access real-time doctor consults via a mobile app. Cigna is using Doctor Anywhere for the service. Telemedicine in Singapore is supervised by the Singapore Ministry of Health’s Licencing and Adaptation Programme (LEAP), “a regulatory sandbox initiative that allows the safe development of new and innovative healthcare models to be piloted in a controlled environment”. Insurance Business Asia

Back in the US, HIMSS is exiting its 30,000 square foot bricks-and-mortar office in downtown Cleveland’s Global Center for Health Innovation (a/k/a the Medical Mart). The exit will be over the next year. This is after a three-year extension of its lease inked in 2018. According to Crain’s Cleveland Business, their sources “described the move as a shift in strategy by the nonprofit that has gone through a leadership change.”

Important: DHACA’s response to the RCP advice on medical apps

April 29, 2015 | by

The Royal College of Physicians has just published app guidance that, according to EHI “doctors should only use medical apps with an official CE mark”. EHI goes on to clarify that the guidance “applies to medical apps that can be classed as medical devices, which are bound by EU law to carry the mark.”

The Digital Health & Care Alliance (DHACA), of which this reviewer is Managing Director, is extremely concerned that this advice may seriously impact on the beneficial use of medical apps in the UK as it places the onus of deciding whether an app is a medical device on individual clinicians, a decision that at times even experienced MHRA personnel can equivocate on.

As the original research done by this editor on the topic of medical app take-up demonstrated, clinicians (more…)

Driving up medical app usage in the UK – part II

January 8, 2014 | by

Introduction

This series of posts covers some work I have been doing over the past three months: attempting to answer the question of how best to improve the perception by clinicians and patients of the efficacy of health-related apps. This work has been done for the i-Focus project, part of the Technology Strategy Board’s dallas programme.

Part I attempted to summarise the EU regulations covering health-related apps. The point was made that any health-related app must comply with data protection and consumer protection requirements, irrespective of whether the risk level is sufficient for it to be classified as a ‘medical device’. Where an app is classified as a ‘medical device’ it also has to be classified so that the appropriate adjudication work can be determined for it to receive a CE mark (Class I, lowest risk, requires least investigation; Class III, highest risk, requires greatest investigation).

This post summarises the principal findings from discussions with a very wide range of potential stakeholders, (more…)