TTA’s Royal Visit Week: OpenEvidence goes dark in UK & EU, UK Biobank and Medtronic hacked, RapidSOS’s well-done docu-video, ‘fetching’ fundings, more!

May 1, 2026 | by | No Comments

 

Friday, 1 May 2026

This week saw King Charles III and Queen Camilla on our shores, from Washington to NYC to Virginia, before flying off to (hopefully) warmer Bermuda. Perhaps the pomp made for a quieter healthcare week. Perhaps the three most important stories were almost lost in the circumstance. “IT” clinical info app OpenEvidence stumbled over compliance with the EU AI Act–and chose to go dark in UK and EU. 500K UK Biobank records were hacked–by trusted Chinese researchers. Medtronic had what they depicted as a not-terribly-consequential breach of their corporate IT systems–we’ll see. A well-done docu-video on what happens when you call 911–and emergency services. Some fundings that ‘fetch’. And more!

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A quickie news roundup: ChatGPT for Clinicians unveiled, UHG to invest $1.5B in AI, Aidoc raises $150M, TriFetch raises $1.9M pre-seed, Boehringer Ingelheim & Eko Health partner on canine heart murmur detection

Breaking: OpenEvidence app access terminated in the UK and EU

(Updated) Medtronic reports corporate IT systems cyberattacked. 500K UK Biobank records breached in inside job. Are med device and research organizations the new hacker happy hunting ground?

‘Behind the Emergency’–a well-done presentation about and approach to a specialized healthcare market

Last Week

Weekend Must Read: The 10 point pattern of failure of healthcare tech companies

News roundup: (breaking) IKS Health finalizes TruBridge buy, Hims shares rise on independent Rx fills, Cala Health scores $50M, Joyful Health $22M, Tava Health $40M, actor Jeremy Renner partners with RapidSOS

Even famous doctors have their identity stolen: Dr. Eric Topol “authors” an apparently fake, AI-generated paper (This Editor’s investigation)

Teleprescriber Zealthy–and CEO Kyle Robertson–accused of asset fraud; DOJ moves to freeze assets and put company in receivership

Chutes & Ladders: Vendor protest filed against VA-OIT, Teladoc stock touted as ‘best buy’, Treehub ‘founder residency’ launches, AcuityMD raises $80M to near-$1B valuation

29th ISfTeH International Conference announced for 11-13 November in Germany–submit your proposal now!

Perspectives: What Healthcare Can Learn from Formula One About AI

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Breaking: OpenEvidence app access terminated in the UK and EU

April 30, 2026 | by | No Comments

The hottest doctor reference source withdrew its medical evidence and decision support app from the UK and European markets. The news, reported in HIStalk on 28 April, is shocking–but not surprising. EU sources have predicted that this would be an outcome of the EU Artificial Intelligence Act. While the UK is not technically subject to EU regulation, the regulatory guidance to date has been along the EU Act’s lines; clearly a decision has been made not to enter the UK market accordingly.

The screen at left (courtesy of HIStalk) cites the ‘regulatory uncertainty regarding the treatment of AI systems’ and invites potential users to ‘make their voice heard’.

OpenEvidence is perceived by most to be the ‘up and coming’ platform for physician information. Its momentum was solidified with deals such as with Mount Sinai NY to integrate it within Epic [TTA 9 Apr], a $250 million Series D funding, and a monster valuation of $12 billion, making it the most valuable healthcare AI company in this solar system. It couples a free search engine trained on journals and clinical medical data only with an AI chatbot agent, making it easy to use for doctors. OpenEvidence partners with prestigious sources such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the American Medical Association.  It claims a daily average usage by 40% of US doctors in 10,000 hospitals and medical centers, achieving 18 million clinical consults in December alone. It recently added clinical trial matching to its capabilities, filtering trials by study design, enrollment status, and geographic proximity. To the US industry, OpenEvidence fills a gap in clinical intelligence that competitors Doximity (public), Epocrates (athenahealth), and Medscape (WebMD) have not to date, which certainly hurts the latter as tight pharma ad dollars reroute to OpenEvidence, as TTA has previously noted. 

The EU and UK constraint will likely not hurt OpenEvidence’s growth, but will hurt physicians in those countries by blocking a reliable source of information. It hits the NHS where it hurts, in its desires for technology advancement and integrating AI in practices. DistilledPost has a more UK-specific discussion of the consequences. Meanwhile, this Editor doubts that OpenEvidence will let this sit, and will eventually find a way towards compliance while growing outside of those markets, such as the Middle East and Asia. They have the resources, the name, and the growth. Hat tip to HIStalk. Letsdatascience, 

Chutes and Ladders w/o 9 Feb: Biofourmis’ ex-CEO faces 7 major Singapore fraud charges (updated), Doximity’s 17% drop; Devoted Health’s big $366M raise, Garner Health garners $118M, Synthpop’s $15M Series A

February 11, 2026 | by

Chutes go first…

The worst kind of Chute to go down is one that lands in a coal-scuttle full of fraud and criminal charges–in a country known for its punishments. Biofourmis’ former CEO is facing seven counts in Singapore. Rajput Kuldeep Singh, one of the founders and former CEO, has been charged in Singapore with three counts of abetting the falsification of accounts, three charges of fraud by false representation or abetment thereof, and one charge of forgery for the purpose of cheating. These are connected to the Singaporean company, Biofourmis Holdings Pte Ltd., between 2021 and 2022. Headquarters moved to Boston after its Series B in 2019.

Mr. Rajput (surname is first) is accused of falsely invoicing US$16.5 million to Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH), and later false representations such as inflated revenue figures, falsified financial statements, a misrepresentation on payment by the MOH, and subsequently a forged employee stock option plan offer letter. This was purportedly intended to deceive DBS Bank into transferring funds from the bank.

The penalties are high in a country that canes offenders for spitting on the sidewalk. The Singapore Police Force announced the charges in a 3 Feb release. Each fraud charge against Mr. Rajput carries a maximum 20 years plus a fine. Falsifying accounts and forgery max out at 10 years plus a fine. Even if convicted of one charge, Mr. Rajput is looking at perhaps a decade of time in a Singapore prison–on multiple charges, perhaps the rest of his adult life. Mr. Rajput is a 34-year-old Indian national. Presently, he is out on bail of S$600,000 (US$475,000) and through his legal representation Eugene Thuraisingam Asia, indicated in court on Feb 4 that he intends to claim trial. Singaporean law moves fast–the pre-trial scheduled to start on 1 April. The Online Citizen (Singapore) Here’s the original article in the Straits Times.

Update on extradition: Should Mr. Rajput remove himself to the US and try to evade extradition, his attorneys will tell him that it may be futile, but will string out things. Extradition is covered by a foundational 1931 bilateral treaty that originated with the UK (as Singapore was a colony then) and has been honored since with modifications and expansions (e.g. the Extradition Act of 1968 and Amendments 2022). The mechanism is straightforward. A request has to be made by the Singapore ministry for law and subsequently heard in a US Federal court. The charges must be valid under existing bilateral laws and meet the requirement that the charges carry a sentence of 2 years+. The extradition back to Singapore must then be approved by the Secretary of State. Fraud, embezzlement, and the taking of money under false pretenses are all covered. Singapore is also an active cooperator with the US whereas many countries with treaties are not. Another complicating factor is that Mr. Rajput is an Indian national and may hold multiple passports.

What about Biofourmis? It merged in October 2024 with CopilotIQ, a smaller RPM/nursing company in home health that took over Biofourmis’ business in in-home delivery of complex care for health systems, payers, and pharmaceutical companies. It was announced by CopilotIQ. This oddity didn’t square with other financial reporting indicating that Biofourmis was the acquiring party, yet was reasonable considering that CopilotIQ’s CEO and his management were running the combined company. Yet Biofourmis was a much larger company, a unicorn with over $400 million acquired in 10 rounds of financing.  Another oddity: Mr. Rajput transferred his 96.6 million shares (!!) in Biofourmis to 19 existing investors immediately prior to the merger, according to filings with ACRA, Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority. Today, the single company runs as two separate brands. In 2024, Mr. Rajput returned to Singapore (and Boston) to found a new company, OutcomesAI, an AI-enabled nurse assistant and voice agent which raised $10 million last October. To be continued….

Doximity, a/k/a LinkedIn for doctors plus virtual visit capability, took a 17% crack on Friday after a wild overnight ride. This is despite the company clocking a decent Q4 2025 beating analysts’ revenue expectations. Sales were up 9.8% versus Q4 2024 to $185.1 million. EBITDA guidance for 2025 is in line at $356 million at the midpoint. What was the problem? Q1 2026. The company guidance is $143.5 million at midpoint, which is below analyst estimates of $151.3 million. It doesn’t seem like much, but the volatility indicates that Doximity has growing competition for the 80% of US doctors who are members. Epocrates and Medscape have for years been the main competition for partner dollars, but the new kid on the block, OpenEvidence, which just clocked a healthy Series D for its medical info search engine, is putting all three in the shade. The pie is also shrinking. Pharma companies are overall spending less and Doximity is spending more on a suite of new tools: DocsGPT, Doximity Dialer, and Doximity Scribe. Share price has stayed flat since Friday. Considering it once traded over $80…. Yahoo Finance, TIKR

Now for the Ladders…climbing them with a ‘barbell’…

Devoted Health raked in $366 million of Series F and post-F funding. This insurtech survivor, a combination of Medicare Advantage (MA) plans with in-house telehealth and in-home care, raised a split Series F: $48 million in November 2025 and at the end of January a Series F-Prime of $317 million. These very late rounds are rare in this constrained funding market. Both were led by long time investor The Space Between (TSB) [TTA 3 Jan 2024], in partnership with Centricus, a London-based global investment firm. This Editor counted 18 additional investors, which is a tell–even when you’re “redefining how healthcare is experienced and delivered” and they are 466,000 members strong, up 121 percent and across 29 states, with 98% of members in 4+ Star plans, they had to knock on a lot of doors for the raise. This raise is also about half of what it would have been in the 2020-22 Silly Money days. One wonders if an IPO is next. Devoted Health release

Garner Health’s latest raise is a $118 million Series D today (Tuesday). The employer-focused provider of health data analytics incentives to guide employees to the best-performing doctors in the employer’s existing health plans now has a total raise of $200 million and a valuation topping $1.3 million. The round was led by Kleiner Perkins with participation from Redpoint, Maverick, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Mercy, Plus Capital, and other existing investors. Garner is claiming revenue increasing over 130% versus their prior year. Release

On the other end of the barbell, Cambridge MA-based Synthpop (not a music genre) had an early raise of $15 million that closed last week. The new Series A brought their total funding to $23 million. It was led by Ansa Capital, with Defy.vc and Peterson Ventures participating in the round with Storm Ventures and strategic investor Bruce Broussard. Marco DeMeireles, co‑founder and managing partner at Ansa Capital will be joining Synthpop’s board. Synthpop uses AI processes to coordinate document intelligence, payer-aware reasoning, and conversational voice agents to automate up to 80% of healthcare business processes, integrating directly with EHR, billing, and e-prescribe platforms. It was founded in 2023 by CEO Elad Ferber and CTO Jan Jannink, PhD, who have considerable previous founder experience. Release

Chutes & Ladders: UnitedHealth’s disastrous day and industry portents; Sword Health buys Kaia for $285M and gains German entry, $250M Series D for OpenEvidence, Pomelo’s $92M Series C, NOCD buys Rebound Health

January 29, 2026 | by

Chutes go first…

UnitedHealth Group’s 2025 financials not only triggered a one-day drop in its stock of 19.6% ($282), but cracked the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) by 409 points– close to 1% (0.8%). Revenue hit a record–$447.6 billion–but profits suffered another drop to $12.1 billion from $14.4 billion in 2024. Worse, it was the lowest annual profit since 2018, not even adjusted for inflation. Their care organization within Optum services, Optum Health, went from a 2024 operational gain of $7.8 billion to a loss of $278 million in 2025. 2026 projections for UHG include a revenue contraction for the first time in years. Healthcare Dive, Yahoo Finance

But the stock free-fall hinged on the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rule move announced on Monday to essentially keep Medicare Advantage (MA)  average rate payments flat at less than 1%, versus an expected 4-6%. This was topped by another rule excluding patient diagnoses that aren’t linked to actual medical care that inflated MA patient risk adjustments, flattening risk scores and payments. The adjustments would save taxpayers about $7 billion. Another major hit is that UHG projects a 2026 loss of 1.3 to 1.4 million MA members. The stock price recovered about 11% today to close at $294.02.

UHG’s stock drop was the 6th worst since 1987’s Black Tuesday. The rule changes also swatted other insurers with major MA markets such as Centene, CVS Health (Aetna), Elevance, and Humana. 

Congress is also going hard after health insurers, with hostile House Ways and Means committee and House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearings last week skewering CEOs from UnitedHealth, CVS, Cigna and Elevance over their compensation, rampant vertical integration with pharmacy benefit management (PBMs) and providers (including rate setting), prior authorization, and care denials. Fun fact: non-insurance business can be as much as one-third of revenue for the insurer giants. Only the Blue Shield of California CEO (Ascendiun), a non-profit, who basically agreed with all the criticisms of healthcare and threw himself on the mercy of the court, somewhat escaped. It was a Bad Day on Capitol Hill that may portend Boot Hill for some CEOs. Healthcare Dive, Becker’s 

Other portents for the industry aren’t great either. ACA individual plan subsidies, which had ballooned beyond recognition in the past few years, are not expected to return, and members are fleeing. Many insurers such as Aetna have already exited the exchanges. Health policy reforms are iffy in a midterm election year. Medicaid state payments are still in unknown territory. A bit more favorable is that margins are stabilizing and commercial plans remain positive. Healthcare Dive

All of which means that in a hot midterm year, there will be renewed bipartisan calls to restrict insurers on practices of their painstakingly integrated service businesses–and increased calls for divestitures. By last year, it was clear that UHG was becoming a victim of its own size and a strategy rapidly becoming obsolete. This Editor in May 2025 (just before her extended hiatus) in an extended brief advocated a voluntary breakup of UnitedHealth Group before it wound up like GE, wrecked by its own problems. The finalized acquisition of Amedysis in August, dangling with DOJ since 2023, was the swan song. Or honk. The days of big UHG accretive buys, Optum acquiring practices, and Optum Ventures making big bets in digital health are over, and darn well should be.

A very tart take–but requiring a subscription–is in yesterday’s (27 Jan) AI Health Uncut. Sergei Polevikov details the multiple fraud cases that UHG is fighting, the devastation that Change Healthcare’s suspension of provider payments for months in 2024 wreaked, insider trading, and more.

And here are the Ladders, which are finally showing up in healthtech after a thoroughly depressing 2025…

MSG physical therapy/mental health/telehealth provider Sword Health today (28 Jan) announced the acquisition of Kaia Health for $285 million. (Updated) Kaia is also in MSK management for employers, payers, and public health systems, but adds a pulmonary therapy for COPD, Kaia Breathe. The Sword brand will replace Kaia in the US, while Kaia’s prescription app footprint in Germany (DiGA) will open the digital health Rx reimbursement pathway there for Sword. Clearly that was a very big asset of interest to Sword. At present, Sword has 700,000 members across three continents and 1,000+ enterprise clients. Their financing to date is $500 million raised from Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Transformation Capital, and Founders Fund. Kaia had funding of about $123 million but hadn’t had funding since their April 2021 Series C, which is a prolonged time and indicates that they were having trouble with that ol’ devil Profitability. (Crunchbase) Sword release, Mobihealthnews

OpenEvidence, the medical information search engine for doctors that is 2026’s ‘hot number’, scored a $250 million Series D, led by Thrive Capital and DST Global. The AI-enabled (what isn’t?) free search engine trained on journals and clinical medical data only, coupled with an AI chatbot agent, claims scorching growth, from 3 million clinical consultations/monthly in December 2024 to 18 million/monthly in December 2025, all from verified US physicians. The Miami-based company also claims daily average usage by 40% of US doctors in 10,000 hospitals and medical centers. Its funding and valuation are scorching too, totaling $700 million from a Murderer’s Row of major investors, doubling its valuation to $12 billion, making it the most valuable healthcare AI company on Planet Earth. (This gives OpenAI and Anthropic something to ‘shoot’ for.) The fresh funding will be invested in R&D and compute costs associated with their multi-AI agentic architecture. “Medical superintelligence” may be an overstatement, but in discussions around physician marketing and engagement, OpenEvidence is showing metrics that dust the traditional providers such as Doximity, Medscape, and Epocrates. FierceHealthcare, Mobihealthnews, release

Pomelo Care’s $92 million raise will take it beyond maternity care. At present targeted to fertility, maternity, and pediatric care for women and children, the company is expanding into midlife women’s health, including perimenopause and menopause symptoms and mental health support. The Pomelo app enables access to a dedicated care team and customized care plans. Currently, the NYC-based company founded by Marta Bralic Kerns and named after the doughy citrus fruit has access to 25 million covered lives through health plan payers and employers. The Series C was led by Stripes with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, PLUS Capital, Atomico, BoxGroup, and SV Angel. Valuation is now up to $1.7 billion. MedCity News, Mobihealthnews, Forbes

On the other end of the barbell, NOCD, a virtual care provider for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), purchased trauma care provider Rebound Health. The two companies are forming under a parent entity, Noto. Rebound provides for trauma patients a mobile app that provides structured self-help support. The overlap/extension for the two companies is in treatment of PTSD and Complex PTSD. NOCD has raised $84 million since its founding eight years ago but Rebound Health only $150,000 in a pre-seed round (Crunchbase). Acquisition cost was not disclosed but could not have been much. Behavioral Health Business

Short takes: a guide to HIMSS25, Google Watch clears loss of pulse detection, OpenEvidence’s AI-powered $75M raise, Retrieve Medical to buy Cúratus, HerMD women’s health closes

February 27, 2025 | by

Going to HIMSS25 in Las Vegas next week (3-7 March)? The huge annual conference, now run by Informa Markets, still features the HIMSS organization and head Hal Wolf front and center. But most go there not so much for the information sessions but for the networking, greeting, demo-ing ones’s wares, and meetings meetings meetings. (And Las Vegas) Both new are the AI Pavilion and the Interoperability Pavilion. Expect about 30 to 35,000 attendees across three venues in Vegas and if you want to really cover it, wear comfortable shoes. Strategize your show on the airplane or this weekend, and take some time to visit the smaller exhibitors. The always on top of it HIStalk provides a short guide here, though this Editor doesn’t know whether any of their team will attend or they will have some commentary from readers, so check back with them. (No, I won’t be there.) Healthcare Finance News, part of HIMSS Media, has a month-old preview video with editor Mike Miliard and Hal Wolf. To be sure, HIMSS Media publications will be covering nearly everything there except the blackjack. In stereo.

Google Watch’s loss of pulse detection clears FDA, finally. The Pixel Watch 3’s loss of pulse feature, launched last year, had clearance in 14 European countries but the FDA clearance opens the door for its use in the US. Loss of pulse (your heart stops beating) or sensing a pulse will show an “I’m OK” prompt. No answer or activity will trigger an emergency alert and call emergency services. It will be activated for US owners sometime in March. Users have to enable it from the Pixel Watch app on your phone > Safety & emergency. It is similar to Google’s existing Car Crash and Fall Detection features. 9to5 Google, Mobihealthnews

OpenEvidence’s $75 million Series A boosts it to $1 billion valuation. The medical information platform is an aggregator for medical information and research. Its LLM AI chatbot is trained on clinical information sources that include 45 years of the New England Journal of Medicine, licensing agreements with peer-reviewed medical journals, and the Mayo Clinic, from which it was spun off.  The company claims use in 10,000 US care centers.  It is also free with unlimited use by healthcare professionals, with the app available on Apple’s and Google’s stores. The Series A was funded by Sequoia Capital. The new funds will be used for strategic content partnerships, to train next-generation LLMs, and grow its team of scientists. With total funding over $100 million, its valuation is now $1 billion. Mobihealthnews, CNBC

Retrieve Medical plans to acquire Cúratus LLC.  Both seem to be bootstrapped data companies, with Retrieve analyzing patient data from multiple sources using advanced natural language processing (NLP) in its Retrieve Dx product for providers to understand complex clinical histories and diagnose chronic conditions. It integrates with major EHRs. Cúratus provides to health plans and provider groups provider data management, and governance for the Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, and commercial payer markets through its ProviderLenz platform. The letter of intent does not disclose offer price, timing, headquartering, or management transitions. Release

Women’s health is supposed to be hot–but here’s another closure against the trend. HerMD, a Cincinnati-based comprehensive practice focused on women’s health that utilized both in-office visits and in-person assessments, coupled with virtual tools, is closing for unclear reasons, other than “ongoing challenges in health care”, perhaps code for running out of money. Their closure on 21 March was disclosed 24 February in an email to patients. The information is not on the website.

Interestingly, it raised a not-inconsiderable $36 million in total funding from its founding in 2015, with investors including Jazz Venture Partners, B-Flexion, and Amboy Street Ventures, expanding beyond Cincinnati to Indiana, Tennessee, and New Jersey. Why their attractive concept, which included longer form visits and aesthetics, did not gain traction is a mystery to this Editor. Perhaps they should have branched out into that other blistering trend, GLP-1 drugs for weight loss. CincyInno