Was Babylon Health all a fraud, and where would it place on the Theranos scale? There is an excellent article in MedCityNews that if true, exposes Babylon’s technology as, at minimum, far less than ever claimed. From the perspectives presented, their crash was inevitable.
MedCityNews returns to the original debunker, best known to our UK Readers as @DrMurphy11. In February 2020, while Babylon rode a tide of UK hype (not yet in the US), Dr. David Watkins, a consultant oncologist, revealed himself publicly via BBC’s Newsnight [TTA 27 Feb 2020]. He had been documenting Babylon’s chatbot diagnosis problems in GP at Hand to the government’s MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) and the independent CQC (Care Quality Commission) since 2017. Scenarios offered to the chatbot missed events such as probable heart attack offering instead panic attack (for a female) and gastritis (for a male). According to MedCityNews, Dr. Watkins had earlier debated a Babylon representative in a debate at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, presumably leading to Newsnight host Emily Maitlis interviewing both Babylon’s Dr. Keith Grimes and Dr. Watkins. Dr. Watkins also received emails from past and current Babylon employees confirming that the “AI chatbot”, the Probabilistic Graphical Model (PGM), was not built on any good quality data.
Cardiac activists in the UK and Canada (Carolyn Thomas, the “Heart Sister”, also listed in our sidebar) also criticized how Babylon’s chatbot ‘diagnosed’ possible events at the time. [TTA 9 Jan 2020].
Hugh Harvey, Babylon’s former regulatory affairs head from 2016 to 2017, was also interviewed on Newsnight in 2020. After the Babylon failure, he spoke to MedCityNews about how the AI software was ‘jury-rigged’ to impress the BBC. After he left, Babylon continued to misrepresent the accuracy of its AI system. “To publicize the accuracy of its AI system, the firm set-up a promotional event where it pitted its system against the Royal College of General Practitioners exam used to assess trainee doctors. Babylon conducted this test itself rather than turning to an independent body, and Harvey claims that the company cherry-picked the questions included in the test….Babylon announced that its AI scored 81% on the exam, surpassing the average score of 72% for UK doctors.”
What was at stake? Babylon got where Theranos never did. A year later, it went public via a SPAC in October 2021 at a valuation of $4.2 billion, with the SPAC organizer Alkuri providing $575 million in gross proceeds to Babylon, including $230 million in a private placement from investors such as AMF Pensionsförsäkring and Palantir Technologies. Two years later, its total hull loss was valued at $5,000.
Some of that money, more than $30 million, went to buying Higi, a health kiosk placed in supermarkets and drugstores that is still in operation in 6,000 locations that uses Babylon’s technology. By early 2023, Higi had separated itself in its public releases from Babylon. It’s unknown how the US Chapter 7 will affect the Higi operation.
Now the commentaries by Dr. Watkins and Mr. Harvey are based on their experiences from some years ago. Babylon could have then created a reliable AI system in GP at Hand and their other diagnostic technologies. But generally, it’s very hard to fix the aircraft as it’s being flown. The situation usually winds up in an episode of ‘Air Disasters’ (‘Air Crash Investigation’ in UK). For those who believe that the problems were never fixed, Dr. Watkins’ analogy would apply. “[Babylon founder and CEO Ali Parsa] should spend some time with Elizabeth Holmes”. Ms. Holmes, as we know, is serving her time in Bryan, Texas for about the next 11 years. That would be an interesting albeit improbable conversation indeed.
Interestingly, over one month later, there’s evidently no one left at Babylon Health who can pull down the website. It’s fully operational save for this banner on the home page:
Babylon’s US clinical services and appointments are no longer available. For details about your health plan benefits and to find a new provider, contact your health plan.
The investor page, including the stock ticker symbol and last price, is intact. Will the last person out the door turn out the lights and turn off the website?
Additional information on GP at Hand (UK)
This Editor while away sought clarification from Alvarez & Marsal’s press office on the status of GP at Hand. GP at Hand is not part of the administration. The ownership contracted with Babylon for the app. According to their website, there are three partners: Dr. Stephen Jefferies, Dr. Matt Noble, and Rita Bright. How this arrangement will continue is not disclosed.
This dovetails with their response:
- GP is a completely separate 3rd party partnership that is a GP practice that contracted with the Babylon Group.
- It therefore hasn’t gone through any insolvency process and is still contracting with Babylon Healthcare Services Limited (which has remained outside of an insolvency).
- The GP at Hand practice wasn’t part of the deal because it couldn’t be as it’s not part of the Group.
Previously: Babylon Health in UK administration, assets sold to eMed Healthcare Ltd.
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