🩹 Health Futures #29

Happy Monday 👋

This week highlights the intersection between technology and healthcare, which also influences drug discovery for better patient outcomes. Google decided not to renew its long-standing agreement with Amazon-owned health unit One Medical, which caused a change in the healthcare landscape. Meanwhile, There are major collaborations highlighted this week between Otsuka and Oxford HIN on digital therapeutics for mental health and Biogen, Beckman Coulter, and Fujirebio team up to advance Alzheimer's blood test. AI is transforming healthcare with its recent partnership with GE Healthcare and AWS to develop AI-driven medical solutions to UW Health's AI guidelines. In the biotech sector, BioNTech and Regeneron's mRNA cancer vaccine advanced while Eisai and Biogen faced rejection from the EU towards Leqembi and GSK partners with  Flagship Pioneering focusing on drug development. In recent funding, Flo Health secured more than $200M in Series C funding aiming to support women’s health.

🩺 Health Services

🌐Google terminated contract with Amazon's Healthcare Unit One Medical. One Medical was known to be one of Google's largest business customers. As Amazon closed the One Medical deal last year, Google decided to terminate its agreement with One Medical. This had caused a major setback in Amazon’s healthcare sector.

🤝 Otsuka partners with Oxford HIN on digital therapeutics for mental health. Otsuka Pharmaceuticals teaming up with Health Innovation Oxford HIN to evaluate the implementation and integration of a new digital therapeutic (DTx), CARE for MDD, intended to support the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) commonly referred to as a clinical depression.

🩸Biogen, Beckman Coulter is teaming up with Fujirebio to develop an Alzheimer's blood test. Biogen and its partners are teaming up to develop a blood test for identifying tau pathology in the brain, which is associated with Alzheimer's disease which helps to measure a patient's tau burden could provide critical insights into the underlying pathological processes of AD and advance the development of a new generation of therapies impacting tau pathology.

🤖 AI in Health

🏥 GE HealthCare partnered with AWS to develop generative AI models and applications. GE HealthCare signed a collaboration to develop generative AI models and applications aimed at enhancing medical diagnostics and patient care for clinicians, holding the importance of growing AI in the healthcare industry.

🤖 UW Health released AI guidelines for healthcare. UW Health issued recommendations and regulations for the use of AI in healthcare after a roundtable discussion with over 20 leaders at the U.S. Capitol.

📊 Synapxe launched a unified healthcare analytics platform in Singapore. Synapxe, a technology company, launched an analytics platform called HEALIX that consolidates data infrastructure across Singapore's public healthcare sector into a single common platform.

🧬 BioPharma

💉 BioNTech and Regeneron's mRNA cancer vaccine advances. BioNTech and Regeneron's mRNA cancer vaccine combination has cleared Phase II trials in melanoma. They will face competition from Merck and Moderna who are also developing an mRNA cancer vaccine.

😔 European Regulator rejected Alzheimer's drug Leqembi. The European Medicines Agency has recommended against approving the Alzheimer's treatment Leqembi for marketing, dealing a setback to developers Eisai and Biogen.

💊 GSK partners with Flagship Pioneering to develop upto 10 drugs and vaccines. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Flagship Pioneering have formed a partnership to develop up to 10 new drugs and vaccines, with a potential value exceeding $7B for Flagship and its portfolio companies.

💰 Deals of the Week

🪶 Flo Health, a London, UK-based women’s health app provider, raised more than $200M in Series C funding. Flo Health aims to support women at every stage of their health journey, from menstruation to conception, pregnancy, and menopause.

🍃 Spring Health, a NYC-based global mental health solution for employers and health plans, secured $100M in a Series E funding round. The raised funds are intended to be used to expand operations and its business reach and accelerate access tp better mental health services.

😷 Airna, a Cambridge, MA-based biotech company advancing RNA editing therapeutics to restore the health of patients with rare and common diseases, secured a $60M  in Series A funding round. The company's initiative is to use the funds to advance its lead product candidate into clinical trials and further develop its broad pipeline.

📘 Vālenz Health acquired Healthcare Bluebook to enhance data-driven solutions for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition would bring the expertise of the two companies complementary services as a one-of-a-kind member engagement and digital front door experience and payment integrity data platform.

🧪 Boehringer Ingelheim acquired NerioTherapeutics, a biotech firm developing cancer immunotherapies for $1.3B. The acquisition aims to expand its immuno-oncology portfolio with Nerio's preclinical-stage cancer drug candidates.

Thank you for reading. Have a great week ahead!
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