TTA’s Blooming Spring 4: UnitedHealth’s CEO change doesn’t stop market pummeling, Omada’s IPO, Theranos redux, Holmes loses appeal, Synchron BCI and Apple, exec security cost, raises, more!

May 16, 2025 | by

 

16 May 2025

One after another surprise this week. UnitedHealth Group changed out CEOs suddenly. The new one is a surprising ‘blast from the profitable past’ but that didn’t stop Mr. Market from taking the stock down down down. Another blast involves Elizabeth Holmes’ partner Billy Evans fronting a diagnostic testing-in-a-box startup. “Surprise, surprise!” No surprise that Holmes lost her appeal of an appeal–nor Omada Health filing for an IPO. Unfortunately, our investigator on all things Masimo met his own surprise walking on a sunny day–fortunately, Ted’s on the mend. More about BCIs with Apple integration, a chronic pain management startup, Parkinson’s data, two good raises, and what payers pay to keep their execs safe.

Short takes: Synchron BCI integrates with Apple devices, Shields Health partners with Duke on specialty pharmacy, raises for Cohere Health, Olio (More BCI action with Apple getting into it)

Theranos’ revenge? Holmes’ partner Billy Evans founds a startup for diagnostic testing, denies it is ‘Theranos 2.0’; Holmes loses Federal rehearing appeal. (Is Holmes advising long distance? Letters from a Texas Jail?)

News roundup: Omada Health files for IPO, UPMC-Redesign partner on chronic pain management, OK and PA AGs warn 23andMe users to delete data, Verily to build Parkinson’s dataset, what payers paid for exec security (Omada follows Hinge. But the last is surprising–between a lot and a little)

This just in: UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty steps down immediately, replaced by former CEO Stephen Hemsley (updated 15 May) (UHG may change out CEOs, but continues to be hammered by Mr. Market)

Best wishes to Strata-gee’s Ted Green on a fast recovery! (Ted, our ace Masimo investigator, was put rather suddenly in a bad place…use your eyes when you drive!)

From last week: This week’s drama was all about Masimo, developing literally as this Editor was writing. Their website outage was revealed to be from a cyberattack that took down nearly all their systems. Not good for a monitoring/tech company. But their good news was that they sold Sound United to Samsung–2/3rds off. The others deserving of more attention are Neuralink’s successful BCI implant in an ALS subject and UHG’s 1,000 app bet on AI. Not so dramatic: WeightWatchers’ prepackaged, quick bankruptcy, the NIH/CMS autism data project, and Amedisys divesting to salvage their UHG sale. 

Short takes: HHS forms NIH/CMS autism data project; Oscar Health beats Street w/Q1 $275M net; Centene’s $1.3B earnings; UHG has class action suit on earnings, 1K AI apps in production; Cedars-Sinai and Redesign Health partner on development; FDA, Lilly, Novo Nordisk win vs. compounders (Big step forward for autism research)

News roundup: WeightWatchers in 45-day prepackaged Ch. 11, Neuralink BCI successful in ALS subject, telehealth VR reduced TMD pain–study, AliveCor maxes up KardiaMobile 6L, TytoCare-Allina Health partnership, UHG-Amedisys divest some more (WW losing runway, a Neuralink win, Amedisys divesting to save their two-year-old UHG deal)

Breaking–Masimo Mystery SOLVED–cyberattack, website down for days, new websites up–and where’s the public explanations? Sound United sold. (Another cleanup on Aisle 10–the Sound United albatross flies off)

Holding this over: The weekend read: why SPACs came, went, and failed in digital health–the Halle Tecco analysis/memorial service; why OpenAI is going to be a bad, bad business (Grab the cuppa and lunch for a good read and podcast. Updated–Also Tecco’s blog post on why she quit being an angel investor.) 

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Short takes: Synchron BCI integrates with Apple devices, Shields Health partners with Duke on specialty pharmacy, raises for Cohere Health, Olio

May 15, 2025 | by | 1 Comment

Another brain-computer interface (BCI) makes a major advance. Synchron, a BCI company based in Brooklyn, NYC, announced that it will be the first BCI company to achieve native integration with Apple’s new BCI Human Interface Device (BCI HID) profile. The 13 May Apple announcement of a native integration means that Synchron’s BCI can control iPhone, iPad and Apple Vision Pro directly with their thoughts without physical movement or voice commands. Synchron’s BCI device, Stentrode, is placed in a blood vessel in the brain via a minimally invasive endovascular procedure, not directly in the brain, captures the neural signals, and connects to the IRT signaling device that has a two-way interface with the Apple devices. Controlled rollouts with trial participants using BCI HID-compatible features are expected to begin later this year. Synchron release, Mobihealthnews, MassDevice

The Synchron Stentrode device is still in clinical trials and has been in development since 2012. Synchron achieved the first BCI in 2019. In March, they and NVIDIA announced Chiral, a foundation model of human cognitions, and developing a cognitive AI model—artificial intelligence trained directly on human neural activity. From their announcement release, Chiral will be trained on a roadmap via NVIDIA’s Holoscan (motor inference), NVIDIA’s Omniverse platform and Cosmos world foundation models to simulate environments, and then through deidentified data. They have also partnered with Team Gleason, a foundation dedicated to improving the lives of people living with ALS. Earlier this month, Neuralink announced its third successful human implant in an ALS patient [TTA 8 May]. 

Shields Health Solutions partnering with Duke Health in North Carolina. The partnership between Duke Specialty Pharmacy and Shields Health Solutions aims to enhance personalized patient care by expanding services, reducing costs, and improving access to treatment options and medication management. Shields Health equips health systems with integrated specialty pharmacy solutions, enabling Duke to support patients with complex chronic conditions through regular follow-ups, side effect management, financial assistance, and medication delivery, with the goals of better medication adherence and patient outcomes. Shields partners with nearly 80 health systems, providing access to over 80% of limited distribution drugs (LDDs) and with most payers. Their clinical model is designed to reduce the total cost of care by 13%. Release

Two raises of note this week (are we seeing the return of lettered rounds?):

Cohere Health lands a $90 million Series C raise. The round was led by by Temasek, with continued support from Deerfield Management, Define Ventures, Flare Capital Partners, Longitude Capital, and Polaris Partners. Their total funding now exceeds $200 million since their start in 2019. Cohere Health automates prior authorization workflows, accelerating decisioning and review for physician practices. They are planning to expand their technology with AI to improve care management and other types of administrative burden.  Release, FierceHealthcare

Olio Health raised $11 million in a Series B. The round was led by by Fulcrum Equity Partners, with participation from Mutual Capital Partners (MCP). Their Series A round of $13 million in August 2022 was led by MCP for a total since 2017 of $26.5 million. Olio’s ‘oil’ is a care management platform for value-based care primary care providers, payers, and health systems for post-acute care. The additional funding will be used for product expansion and accelerate their go-to-market initiatives. Olio is headquartered in Indianapolis.  Release, Mobihealthnews

News roundup: Musk’s Neuralink implants first human BCI; Cigna’s $3.7B MA sale to HCSC; no Amazon deal for iRobot; DispatchHealth-Instacart food Rx; 5 India health tech fundings (updated)

February 1, 2024 | by

Elon Musk first out (again) with a human brain-computer interface (BCI). Announced Monday by Neuralink, founded by Elon Musk, is the first human implant of a BCI. No details in the tweet beyond “recovering well’ and “promising neuron spike detection”. The device is a cosmetically invisible implant (N1) in the part of the brain that plans movements. It interprets neural activity, sending a signal to a computer or smartphone through thought. The N1 device, containing several dozen threads holding over 1,000 electrodes, is implanted by a R1 robot. FierceBiotech, MM+M Online

The subjects of the PRIME study are likely those recruited last fall after the FDA approved proceeding with a clinical trial. A blog post on the Neuralink website recruited adult volunteers with quadriplegia–paralysis of the arms and legs caused by a cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Earlier, Neuralink raised $280 million in a Series D led by Founders Fund. FierceBiotech 8 Aug 2023  There were difficulties, however. Within the past two years, Reuters reported 1,500 animal deaths over four years of research that attracted the attention of the Department of Transportation (DOT) (!) and the Department of Agriculture’s inspector general. FDA held up approval of human clinical trials until last year.

Research and companies in the BCI race have been making news since at least 2016 but have not reached clinical trials. In 2022 Synchron had an oversubscribed Series C of $75 million for the Stentrode blood vessel device (in clinical trials) and Synchron Switch BCI devices [TTA 17 Dec 22]. Last year, Precision Neuroscience raised $41 million in a Series B [TTA 28 Jan 23]. Their focus is on treatment of neurological illnesses and events such as stroke, traumatic brain injury, and dementia. Of course, one could debate implant ethics, but not for these limited uses right now.

To no one’s surprise including the relatively low price of $3.7 billion, Cigna sold its 600,000-member Medicare Advantage business to HCSC, beating out Elevance (the former Anthem). Cigna is also selling its supplemental benefits and Medicare Part D plans, along with CareAllies, a subsidiary that assists primary care practices with value-based care in Medicare and commercial plans. Together, they cover 3.6 million people, but the now-money-losing MA business represented only 2% of the total MA market. Closing is expected to be in 2025, subject to the usual regulatory approvals. HCSC currently operates in five states and this marks a major growth opportunity for them, if they pass state and Federal scrutiny.

Update: Some speculation remains that now that Cigna has agreed to sell the MA and other businesses, a Humana buy may be more of a go–at a reduced price given Humana’s recent earnings difficulties. This feels, to this Editor, like whistling in the dark. Prima facie, it ignores two factors: the major stumbling block was their respective strengths in pharmacy benefit management (PBM) though with different focuses, and that Cigna, having rid themselves of a money loser in MA, would buy it back and take on short term pain just to get bigger. Perhaps the two, because they seem to like dancing with each other, may partner in some areas like home health or other services, but for now the regulatory landscape is waaaay too hostile to mega-mergers in healthcare and the shareholders feel the same. Why buy the cow, etc.? MedCityNews  Further evidence? The CEO bragged about the sale as moving towards a leaner and more focused organization (the new catchphrase) on the 2 February earning call, as well as their interest in providing services via their Evernorth unit to MA providers, such as tying pharmacy services to the MA plans for four years after the HCSC buy. Healthcare Dive

iRobot sale to Amazon fails due to “no path to regulatory approval”, company lays off 31% of staff. In more bad news for Amazon, regulatory disapproval by the EU finally put paid to the deal for the Roomba maker. The EU found that Amazon’s ownership would have restricted competition in the robot vacuum cleaner category by restricting access to Amazon’s marketplace. This is no different than the FTC and DOJ in the US which blocked it for two years. Amazon will pay iRobot a $94 million breakup fee, which the latter will need as their market capitalization has crashed to $400 million from the $1.7 billion original sales price.  iRobot is reducing staff by 350, its CEO is also stepping down immediately, and they are concentrating now on margin improvements, restricting lines of business, and reducing R&D. CNBC  Consider this Lina Khan’s first ‘scalp’ in her War on Amazon.

DispatchHealth, an in-home care provider, has a new partnership with Instacart, a food delivery service, to directly address nutrition needs for their advanced care patients being treated at home.  Dispatch provides same-day, urgent medical care; hospital alternative care; and recovery care. With Instacart Health, Dispatch creates meal plans and medically tailored meals through shopping lists on Instacart that can be delivered direct to home. Payment must be made by the patient or if their Medicare Advantage plan permits. Food is a significant part of social determinants of health (SDOH) and Dispatch has found that 33% of their patients struggle with this and 22% have serious food insecurity. Orders can be made by phone, phone app, or website. McKnights Home Care, Mobihealthnews, DispatchHealth release   DispatchHealth has also experienced recent layoffs of 88 employees. Home Health Care News

And now for something completely different. India has been buzzing with several fundings in digital health. The roundup’s from Mobihealthnews with additional information from other sources:

  • CureBay, a rural-focused e-clinic from visits to lab tests and prescriptions with 90 locations, scored another Rs 620 million ($7.5 million) in funding as part of a Series A round led by Elevar Equity. IndianStartUpTimes
  • Mental health platform Amaha raised over Rs 50 million ($6 million) in an extended Series A funding round. The app-based treatement platform connects members with clinicians and psychiatrists. It also acquired the Delhi NCR-based Child and Adolescent Mental Health Institute, Children First, that has been providing support to 12,000+ families since its inception in 2008. Release
  • Healspan, an insurance tech startup that manages cashless health insurance claims for 60 hospitals, raised Rs 1.2 million (over $100,000) in pre-seed funding from a round led by startup accelerator PedalStart. ExpressHealthcare India
  • FlexifyMe, a chronic pain digital therapeutics platform with AI-powered patient scanning, gained pre-seed funding from angel platform ah! Ventures Angel Platform. Based in India but with operations in the US and Dubai, their therapy addresses back pain, cervical pain, spondylosis, and other conditions via what they term a unique combination of online physiotherapy, yoga therapy, and AI. BiospectrumIndia  In October, they had raised $1 million from Flipkart Ventures. Times of India
  • Docosage, described as an AI-driven health solutions provider with a telehealth consult, e-prescribing, lab testing, and genetic studies platform, also has an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding from an individual angel investor. The funding will be used for strategic partnerships by exploring collaborations with hospitals, clinics, insurance companies, and incorporating tech advancements to enhance product features. ExpressHealthcare India 

*Updated 2 Feb for additional analysis around Cigna MA sale to HCSC and copy editing

Rounding out week: Oracle Health engineering head departs; Hive ransomware KO’d by DOJ; Google sued by DOJ on antitrust, lays off another 12,000; Pearl and Precision Neuro raise, Enabled Healthcare ADAPT grant

January 28, 2023 | by

Oracle Health engineering executive VP Don Johnson ankles after six months. Mr. Johnson, who was a nine-year veteran of Oracle, came up through the cloud infrastructure area starting in 2014, after a previous stint from 2005 at Amazon Web Services. He led product strategy, engineering, and operations before shifting over to Oracle Health. Oracle’s Cerner acquisition has been one Tower of Trouble, a Mound of Misery, even before it closed last June. Being barked at by Congress and the GAO over the VA and MHS, plus eroding relationships with health systems over EHR problems, and with the pressure from the tip-top to fix it fast and get on with the transformation of healthcare, could lead one to consider a long trip to a Remote Pacific Island. The Register. Hat tip to HISTalk.

In one for our side, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that the international ransomware network known as the Hive was shut down. Its servers in Los Angeles and darknet sites were seized. The DOJ continues to pursue charges against Hive members. The Hive ransomware was used in attacks on an estimated 1,300 companies worldwide since June 2021, yielding about $100 million in ransom payments. Hospital systems attacked were numerous, including Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston and a Louisiana health system.   DOJ release 26 Jan, Healthcare IT News, HealthITSecurity

The problems at Google continue with a DOJ civil antitrust lawsuit released earlier this week accusing Google of monopolizing multiple digital advertising technology products. For those of us in marketing who came up with a choice of multiple search engines and ad technologies, Google’s monopoly of the “ad tech stack” that website publishers depend on to sell ads and that advertisers rely on to buy ads is very real, and very expensive. You live and die by Google algorithms on your search ranking, both natural search and optimization. In other words, you deal with Google or nobody. So the DOJ lawsuit, joined by eight states, is, in this Editor’s view, overdue. Few are drawing a line between this antitrust suit and the layoffs of 12,000 Google staff (6%) last week plus the cutbacks at Verily, but this Editor will. DOJ release, CNBC

Funding raises in seed, Series A and B are the most common–two of note in Series B this past week:

  • Pearl Health raised a $75 million Series B of $55 million in equity capital and an anticipated $20 million in a line of credit. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Growth Fund and Viking Global Investors. Pearl is a developer of services and software for independent providers to enable them to better participate in value-based care through consolidating healthcare data and then using that information to create personalized patient care plans.  Release, MedCityNews 
  • Precision Neuroscience raised $41 million, also in a Series B.  Precision is another brain-computer interface technology like Synchron [TTA 17 Dec 22], in this case focused on treatment of neurological illnesses and events such as stroke, traumatic brain injury, and dementia. Leading the round is Forepont Capital Partners. Mobihealthnews 

In even earlier-stage companies, grants from accelerators are still present and are significant. Enabled Healthcare is a startup that has received a grant of $50,000 from Village Capital’s ADAPT program, It is one of four receiving an equity-free, peer-selected grant. ADAPT, funded by MetLife Foundation, supports innovation and development of solutions for key issues related to climate change, healthcare and wellness, and economic mobility. Enabled was selected from over 130 startups. Enabled combines in-person and virtual monitoring approaches to better coordinate care for those with complex needs on Medicare and Medicaid, and will go live in March. Release 

Rounding up fundings and startups: Override(ing) pain; brainy Synchron and In-Med Prognostics; Click off migraine; Cardiosense and CHF detection

December 17, 2022 | by

Looking at the brighter side–new companies and fundings, even the modest ones:

Override, a virtual pain management startup, emerged from stealth mode this week with $3.5 million in hand. The company’s program applies an interdisciplinary methodology to virtual pain management in a continuity from diagnosis and physical therapy through to pain coaching and mental health. According to their release, the company combines the “latest in pain neuroscience research to help patients make functional, behavioral, and movement-related changes needed to calm the nervous system and rewire pain neural pathways. The program strives to transform people dependent on opioids, chiropractors, and repeat injections into self-managers of their own pain experience and broader health.” Pain coaching is offered nationwide, while pain physicians, physical therapy, and pain psychology treatment are only available to residents in FL, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, and Texas. Services may be purchased à la carte or bundled. Override’s present model is direct to patients first, then piloting with employer and health system partners.

What is also intriguing is that Override is a family affair–David Shulkin, MD, former VA Secretary, and his daughter, Jennie Shulkin, a lawyer who is herself a chronic pain sufferer. Dr. Shulkin is also experienced in this via the VA’s opioid treatment program. Seed funding of $3.5 million was raised from 7wireVentures and Martin Ventures, joined by SignalFire and Confluent Health. Prior to coming out of stealth, Override used the funding to purchase pain management coach Take Courage Coaching. Something very needed for the estimated 50 million Americans with chronic pain. Hat tip to HISTalk 16 Dec.

Recent fundings rounded up concentrate on the brain and heart:

The largest is brain-computer interface (BCI) developer Synchron with an oversubscribed Series C of $75 million. Lead investor was ARCH Venture Partners, joined by heavy hitters such as Gates Frontier, Bezos Expeditions, Reliance Digital Health Limited, and 11 others. Synchron’s value proposition is centered on a minimally invasive, surgically inserted brain implant (Synchron Switch) for what they term Neurointerventional Electrophysiology (Neuro EP). FDA granted them Breakthrough Device designation in 2020 for the Stentrode device, an implant delivered to the brain through blood vessels to give paralysis patients the ability to control digital devices with their thoughts. It is currently in human clinical trials in the US and Australia. The fresh funding will be used for additional development. A number of these funders have made public their interest in BCI for other uses for which thought tracking and action might be useful. Mobihealthnews, Crunchbase, VC News Daily 

Speaking of brains, Pune, India’s In-Med Prognostics has received $2.13 million in a seed round from Exxora and other angel investors. In-Med has developed AI diagnostics to aid in the assessment and early detection of neurological disorders such as dementia, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s. The funding will further develop their NeuroFlow analytics platform; NeuroShield, an app powered by NeuroFlow that provides ethnicity-specific volumetric brain analysis within 20 minutes; and VivoShield Sports for performance analysis. Currently, they are marketed in Africa but In-Med has offices in Australia and San Diego.  VCCircle (India), Mobihealthnews 

And for that pain in the head known as migraine, Click Therapeutics has received FDA Breakthrough Device Designation for its prescription digital therapeutic for episodic migraine. CT-132 is being developed as an adjunctive preventive treatment for episodic migraine in patients aged 18 years+. In April, Silicon Valley Bank loaned them $15 million to retire an earlier term loan from K2 Health Ventures. Release 16 Dec, Release 15 April, Mobihealthnews

Moving from the head to the heart, Cardiosense garnered a $15 million Series A for its AI-based detection of cardiovascular disease. In February, it received Breakthrough Device designation from FDA for combining monitoring of  seismocardiogram, electrocardiogram and photoplethysmogram readings from the CardioTag wearable sensor with AI algorithms to determine pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP). PCWP is a measure of congestive heart failure (CHF) that at present can only be assessed through catheterization. The new funding will speed up other products in its portfolio as well as studies to further refine and validate the CHF algorithm over a diverse population. Leading the Series A were Broadview Ventures and Hatteras Venture Partners joined by four others.  Release, FierceBiotech