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A well-recognized blood testing pitch

I trekked throughout the Bay to Palo Alto to get an inside take a look at how a distinguished genetics and large knowledge skilled is making an attempt to overtake blood testing. For about six years, Stanford professor Mike Snyder and his lab have been refining a way for accumulating particular person drops of blood and analyzing their molecules for well being indicators. (Throughout one week in 2019, he drew 98 drops of his personal blood to check the method, dragging a dry-ice stuffed cooler with him to every assembly.)

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The system his lab is patenting — generally known as “multi-omics micro sampling” — may ultimately make it simpler for sufferers to gather their very own blood and get them it analyezd extra ceaselessly. It usually attracts an apparent comparability to Theranos, however that hasn’t dissuaded Snyder. His objective is to offer folks their very own well being knowledge, empowering them to make extra knowledgeable life-style and well being care selections like slicing out caffeine or prioritizing sleep.

I spoke with Snyder and two Y Combinator-backed firms spinning out of his lab that plan to make use of micro sampling as a key a part of their enterprise. One, referred to as Iollo, goals to observe coronary heart and kidney well being. RTHM plans to supply blood assays to lengthy Covid sufferers to trace illness development. Read my full dispatch.

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What Best Buy sees in house well being

Best Buy isn’t the primary title that involves thoughts when folks consider well being care. But a brand new partnership between the electronics retailer and Atrium Health, a part of the nonprofit well being system Advocate Health, is an indication of how massive tech and retail firms wish to get in on the booming hospital-at-home market, writes my colleague Lizzy Lawrence.

Best Buy entered the health care space with its acquisitions of GreatCall and Current Health. Atrium Health, in the meantime, was one among many hospitals that took benefit of the CMS program to reimburse hospital-at-home care throughout the pandemic. The objective of the partnership is to use Best Buy’s supply and technical help experience to house well being care. If a affected person wants a blood stress cuff, for instance, Best Buy would ship the gadget after which enlist “Geek Squad” help staff to coach sufferers on the right way to use the at-home hospital setup.

Tech firms on the lookout for alternatives within the house well being market will likely be paying shut consideration to the Best Buy-Atrium partnership. Read more from Lizzy here.

A chat with B Capital’s Robert Mittendorf

Last week, West Coast funding agency B Capital — whose well being care portfolio contains Innovaccer, Evidation, and Bright Health — launched a separate $500 million fund devoted particularly to well being innovation firms. I chatted with Robert Mittendorf, who joined B Capital in 2021 to guide its well being initiatives. Like many different funds, he instructed me, B Capital Healthcare Fund I will maintain a detailed eye on AI and machine studying — however just for purposes the place it may really show helpful. Here’s what he instructed me about his broader funding philosophy.

B Capital already has some well being investments, so why are you launching a separate fund?

B Capital has traditionally invested in well being tech and digital well being, however not as a lot in biotech or med tech. [The new fund] has a specialised crew targeted on healthcare investing. The crew we’ve — members of B Capital, together with some further crew members each within the U.S. and globally, have labored in working roles in well being care, have extra technical backgrounds, and have been traders in well being care. The area data we’ve us is fairly spectacular.

How do you inform which firms can climate this section of digital well being investing?

The proving out interval is the place I believe we’re with digital well being. You should have a medical mannequin that is sensible, you must be addressing a medical well being drawback. Digital well being firms should have a stable medical mannequin that has some prior historical past of having the ability to work. Or at the least a logic that can work.

You have to have a enterprise mannequin, or a reimbursement mannequin, or a value-based care mannequin that exists right this moment.  It could possibly be in its nascent type. You have to have a method that includes proving to the market that what you’re doing has medical and financial worth.

The groups are additionally tremendous necessary. Teams can have digital or technical experience or healthcare experience. The groups which can be monolithic in a type of areas are normally unsuccessful. They should be hybrid, they should be tech and healthcare primarily based groups, and people cultures are exhausting to construct.

Where do traders disagree about what’s more likely to take off in well being care?

Probably the most important one I believe folks normally don’t get proper is how they interpret proof on an intervention. I consider that digital well being in some ways needs to be examined the way in which you’ll [for] medical operations in drugs, and new procedures and new medication.

FTC continues well being knowledge privateness crackdown

The Federal Trade Commission is pushing ahead with its plan to curb unfettered knowledge sharing by consumer health companies. Following its watershed settlement with GoodRx, the company final week charged online therapy business BetterHelp — a division of Teladoc — of failing to guard customers’ privateness regardless of assertions that it could accomplish that. The proposed settlement contains $7.8 million together with refunds for affected BetterHelp clients.

BetterHelp shared knowledge about customers and guests with websites and apps like Facebook and Pinterest for advert functions, according to the complaint — it additionally shared emails and IP addresses of greater than 5 million customers with Snapchat, amongst different allegations.

Transcarent scoops up a part of 98point6

Self-insured employer targeted well being care platform Transcarent, led by Livongo founder Glen Tullman, has agreed to accumulate a part of text-based main care firm 98point6. The firms stated the deal was valued at about $100 million, and offers Transcarent entry to 98point6’s clients together with Boeing and Banner | Aetna. 98point6, which can rebrand as 98point6 Technologies, will give attention to licensing its AI software program to different well being methods, starting with MultiCare.

Other offers and job strikes

• Organ preservation firm Paragonix expertise raised $24 million in a Series B spherical led by Signet Healthcare Partners
• Parkinson’s care firm Rune Labs named Naveen Kumar its chief industrial officer. Kumar joins from Guardant Health. 
• Fertility firm Kindbody Health raised one other $100 million from Perceptive Advisors, tipping its valuation to $1.8 billion.
• Weight Watchers is shopping for telehealth firm Sequence, facilitating its entry into the marketplace for Ozempic prescriptions, WSJ reports.