Believe it or not, Jessica DaMassa and I have been banging out digital health tech & funding news for 200 episodes of this oh-so-cute little show. To celebrate, after several takeover episodes when Jess replaced me with a number of special guests, this time four of the digital health & health care digerati replaced Jess to ask me some oh so serious questions. It’s a special edition with guest appearances from Glen Tullman, Eugene Borukhovic, Lisa Suennen & Ian Morrison, as well as plenty of BS from us two regulars! — Matthew Holt
THCB Gang Episode 51, Thursday April 22
Episode 51 of “The THCB Gang” was live-streamed on Thursday, Jan 21. You can see it below! Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) was joined by regulars: futurists Ian Morrison (@seccurve) & Jeff Goldsmith; privacy expert and now entrepreneur Deven McGraw @HealthPrivacy; and digital health guru Fard Johnmar (@fardj). We really dug into vaccines, vaccine passports and what they means for the future of health and society. Great conversation, benefitting a lot from having a fabulous lawyer on the show!
If you’d rather listen to the episode, the audio is preserved from Friday as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels.
#Healthin2Point00, Episode 199 | Olive acquires Empiric plus raises by Medable & Papa
Today on Health in 2 Point 00, I air some of my grudges as we get into our deals for the day. In the third extension of their Series C, Medable gets another $78 million bringing their total to $217 million. Olive acquires Empiric Health, expanding into surgical data analytics – where does this fit in with Sean Lane’s five-point strategic plan? Finally, Papa gets a $60 million raise and Anthem, Blackstone and K Health launch a joint venture. —Matthew Holt
THCB Gang Episode 50, Thursday April 15
Well the half-century is up for #THCBGang and it’s been a lot of fun bantering with some of the cognoscenti of health tech, business & policy over most of the last year.
For #50 we had a special guest. Robert Pearl, (@RobertPearlMD) former CEO of The Permanente Medical Group, noted commentator, and author. He joined me, along with regular gang members policy expert consultant/author Rosemarie Day (@Rosemarie_Day1), policy & tech expert Vince Kuraitis (@VinceKuraitis), and Suntra Modern Recovery CEO JL Neptune (@JeanLucNeptune).
There was a little discussion of Robert’s new book Uncaring (although there’ll be more about that on THCB later) and a lot of discussion about his experience at Kaiser Permanente, what went right, what went wrong and why it never traveled nationwide–and what that all means for a new generation of medical groups. And we didn’t forget the vaccine rollout, and even whether it was safe to be on a plane!
You can see the video below live and the audio will be on our podcast channel (Apple/Spotify) from Friday — Matthew Holt
#Healthin2Point00, Episode 198 | Microsoft buys Nuance & lots of IPO rumors
Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess claims to be blameless for the drama between Jonathan Bush and Glen Tullman. On Episode 198, we talk about Microsoft buying Nuance for $16 billion and $3 billion in debt – is Microsoft taking over healthcare, and is this going to slow Nuance down? Cohere Health raises $36 million in a Series B, working on improving prior authorizations between health plans and providers. We wrap up with a lightning round of IPO rumors regarding Privia Health, VillageMD, and Bright Health. —Matthew Holt
Jean Drouin, Clarify Health, on the new data stack.
By MATTHEW HOLT
Clarify Health has linked (but anonymized) data on about 300m Americans, including their claims, lab, (some) EMR data and their SDOH data. They then use it to help providers, plans and pharma figure out what is going on with their patients, and how their doctors et al are behaving. CEO Jean Drouin, a French-Canadian who incidentally at one point ran strategy for the NHS in London, explained to me what Clarify does, how it’s going to help improve health care, where these data products are going next–and why they needed to raise $116m in March to build it out. Jean thinks about creating a single source of truth, and I asked him a couple of tricky questions about whether his customers would want to know the answer. A fascinating discussion. (Full transcript below)
Matthew Holt:
Hi, Matthew Holt here with another THCB Spotlight. And I’m with Jean Drouin, who has a French Canadian name, but is an American who’s lived in London–a bit like me–who is the CEO of Clarify Health. So Jean, Clarify Health is one of the new startups. You guys raised over a $110 million a couple of weeks back, which I guess is a small round these days considering what everyone else is doing.
Continue reading…Health Tech Deals, on Clubhouse tomorrow (Thursday 8th) at 1 PT/4 ET
Tomorrow we are taking a break from #THCBGang. Don’t worry it’ll be back with a vengeance next week. Instead, Jess DaMassa & I will host a new show “Health Tech Deals” on Clubhouse
So please join Jess and me in The Health Care Blog’s room for “Gossip, analysis & Sh!talking about digital health funding”.
Tomorrow, Apr 8 at 1:00 PM PDT – 4pm ET on @joinClubhouse. Join us! (And if you need an invite to Clubhouse, let me know)
And it’ll be on our podcast channel (Apple/Spotify) from Friday — Matthew Holt
#Healthin2Point00, Episode 197 | BrightInsight, SteadyMD, CirrusMD, and Cleo
Today on Health in 2 Point 00, I’m getting my shots soon! On Episode 197, General Catalyst is throwing more money around – $101 million goes to BrightInsight for its digital health insights management platform. SteadyMD raises $25 million bringing its total to $31 million, and CirrusMD raises $20 million in a Series C bringing its total to $47 million. Is there room for more telehealth companies? Finally, fertility benefits company Cleo gets $40 million, bringing its total up to $80 million – this was a hot space last year, what’s going on now? —Matthew Holt
THCB Gang Episode 49, Thursday April 1, 1pm PT /4pm ET
The April Fools joining me on THCB Gang today will be policy expert consultant/author Rosemarie Day (@Rosemarie_Day1), futurist Jeff Goldsmith, policy & tech expert Vince Kuraitis (@VinceKuraitis), and patient safety expert & all around wit Michael Millenson (@MLMillenson). There’s vaccines, a 4th wave, Texas reopening, Florida never having closed, and a whole mess of health policy. It’ll be fun — so come join us
You can see the video below live and the audio will be on our podcast channel (Apple/Spotify) from Friday
#Healthin2Point00, Episode 196 | Rightway, AKASA, Viz.ai, AppliedVR, & Harmonize
We’ve only got one $100 million deal today on Health in 2 Point 00 — has the bubble burst? On Episode 196, Jess and I talk about care navigator Rightway raising $100 million – there’s a lot going on with this space, does it make sense to do this right now with Transcarent? AKASA, formerly known as Alpha, raises $60 million bringing its total to $85 million for revenue cycle management. Viz.ai gets $71 million, bringing its total to $150 million, for its stroke diagnostic AI software, AppliedVR raises $29 million bringing its total to $35, and Harmonize Health raises $10 million working on remote patient monitoring. —Matthew Holt
