Today on Health in 2 Point 00, we have a viewer question! For our friends who are wondering what will happen to all the IPOs that were supposed to happen this year, I weigh in on how this crisis will impact IPOs and startup funding. On Episode 114, Jess asks me about the stimulus package granting $117 billion to hospitals and for my thoughts on all the startups coming up with ways to address COVID-19. A few startups that come to mind include Conversa with its virtual care conversation, Coronavirus Health Chats, Biofourmis which is looking for ways to track infected people earlier through its AI-powered arm sensor, and Surveyor Health leveraging its data analytics platform as well. For more on this, check out covid19healthtech.com where my colleagues at Catalyst have put together a resource hub for health tech solutions. —Matthew Holt
Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 113 | Oura, Heartbeat Health, Vault & Bloomer Tech
Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I are covering all the hard hitting news while surviving COVID-19. Before we turn to deals, Jess asks for my thoughts on the American Hospital Association, American Medical Association and American Nurses Association asking for $100 billion from Congress. For our funding news, Finnish smart ring startup Oura raises $28 million in a Series B; Heartbeat Health raises $8.2 million in a Series A for virtual cardiovascular care; Vault raises $30 million in a Series A, entering an already-crowded field alongside Roman and Hims; and Bloomer Tech raises $3 million for their smart bra. Finally, keep up with digital health innovators working on COVID-19 on Catalyst’s new site, covid19healthtech.com. —Matthew Holt
Tracking digital health innovation in response to COVID-19
By INDU SUBAIYA & MATTHEW HOLT
Since the COVID-19 pandemic became very real for all of us a couple in the US a couple of weeks ago, our team at Catalyst @ Health 2.0 has been working on a way to support the wider health tech community.
We have created a list of information on innovators who are working to address the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to maximize our response efforts to the coronavirus outbreak, we are collecting information on specific solutions for COVID-19 issues from digital innovators in several categories like telemedicine, artificial intelligence, and disaster preparedness. Our resource hub includes information on health technology developments, as well as news and interviews. We are by no means the only ones doing this and we are doing this cooperatively with HIMSS, Startup Health, Chilmark, HealthXL and others.
Our goal is to have as comprehensive and searchable a list as possible of these solutions. Today we are making our first effort live. Please come look at the site at covid19healthtech.com and please give us your feedback. In particular if you or your organization is working on a response to COVID-19 or you have expert insights on how to address the outbreak, please tell us about it!
We hope to greatly expand the number of companies and organizations we feature in the coming days, and look forward to working with the wider health tech community to all do what we can to improve health care as much as we can in these very trying circumstances
Indu Subaiya & Matthew Holt are the co-founders of Health 2.0 LLC
Julia Cheek, Everlywell, & its response to COVID-19
I interviewed Julia Cheek, CEO of Everlywell about their response to COVID-19. Last week they issued a $1m challenge to labs to promote the rapid capability to develop COVID-19 testing. Her goal is to get the US up to 250K home tests per day within a month, but it won’t be easy. This is the first in a series of news and tracking that THCB & Catalyst @ Health 2.0 will be doing on health tech companies’ response to the pandemic — Matthew Holt
Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 112 | COVID-19, HealthDevJam & loads of deals
Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess is joining somebody for their self quarantine in the Oval Office! Shenanigans aside, I give a quick coronavirus update and a shameless plug before diving into our regular coverage of all the deals. As for COVID-19, there’s a ton of activity going on in the digital health world with companies trying to figure out how they can help with this. Catalyst will be presenting some of that, either this weekend or early next week. Next, there’s an FHIR-related HealthDevJam event (free, online) TODAY at 1pm Eastern with lots of great people speaking.
Diving into some non-coronavirus related deals, eConsult company RubiconMD raises $18 million, Lyra Health getes a chunk of change—$75 million—for its mental health platform, Fruit Street Health gets $17 million from an unlikely source, b.well raises $16 million for what’s not a personal health record, and CVS announces that it added 5 digital health companies to its point solution management system. Finally, there’s been some sneaky stuff uncovered about Sanofi. Tune in for all the details on Episode 112. —Matthew Holt
Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 111 | #HIMSSpocalypse2020
Live from the tradeshow floor of HIMSS, it’s Health in 2 Point 00! And no, I’m not fading away from coronavirus on this episode—but how many people could I have singlehandedly infected had the conference gone forward? On Episode 111, Jess and I have some fun with virtual backgrounds and talk about all of the things we’re missing at HIMSS right now. From what Trump would’ve said had he gotten the opportunity to speak, to what conversation would’ve gone on about the new ONC rules, to the big funding announcement we missed, here’s everything that succumbed to #HIMSSpocalypse2020. —Matthew Holt
Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 110b | Maven, IntelyCare, and New Acquisitions!
Today on Health in 2 Point 00, we resume our two-part series with part B and bring our promised special guest! Continuing from the first part of Episode 110, Jess and I discuss the women and family health startup Maven raising $45 million in its Series C round with celebrity investment. 1UpHealth, the MassChallenge HealthTech Finalist, raises $8 million; IntelyCare raises $45 million bringing the gig-economy approach to nurse staffing raises, and HealthJoy raises $30 million in Series C funding. The hospital owned ACO umbrella services company Caravan Health acquires Wellpepper, and Sharecare acquires Visualize Health; are these good acquisitions? -Matthew Holt
Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 110a | Trump at HIMSS20, K Health, and Accolade
Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess is singing as we are finally back with a two-part episode to cover the deals over the past couple weeks! On part A of Episode 110, Jess and I begin with Trump as he is set to speak at HIMSS next week. K Health raises $48 million in its Series C round to focus development on AI-powered primary care. Accolade files for a $100 million IPO and the telehealth language service platform Cloudbreak Health raises $10 million. Finally, Q Bio raises $40 million in Series B funding aiming to open additional centers and enhance the digital health platform. -Matthew Holt
Understanding #Medicare4All & the Democratic Primaries
By MATTHEW HOLT
Since Saturday’s Nevada primaries, confusion seems to be reigning about how Bernie Sanders seems to be winning. Time (and not a lot more of it) will tell who actually ends up as the Democratic nominee. But the progressive side (Bernie + Warren) is doing much better than the moderate side (Biden/Butt-edge-edge/Klobuchar) expected, while we wait to see how the Republican side of the Democratic primary (Bloomberg) does in an actual vote. The key here is the main policy differential between the two sides, Medicare For All.
Don’t get too hung up in the details of the individual plans, especially as revealing said details may have hurt Elizabeth Warren. But do remember that there is one big difference between Sanders/Warren and the moderates. It comes down to whether everyone is in the same state-run single payer system (a modified and expanded version of Medicare) or whether the private employer system is left as it is, with expanded access to something that looks like Medicare (the public option) for everyone else. Note that no Democrat wants to stand pat on Obamacare “as is”. Everyone is way to the left of what Obama ran on in 2008 (or at least what he settled for in early 2009).
Why has this changed? Well there’s been a decade of horror stories. I’m not talking about the BS anti-Obamacare stories from people forced to give up their junk insurance, I’m talking about people with insurance being bankrupted or put through horrendous experiences, like this mother who was put through the ringer by various insurers when her 1 year old son was killed and husband injured in a road accident. Or this health tech CEO, who was an MD & JD and had to put $62,000 on his American Express card to get surgery.
About 3 years ago as the dust was clearing from the Obamacare implementation, the impact of this started showing up in the polls.Continue reading…
Consulting for Health Tech Startup CEOs From the Guy Who Knows | Matthew Holt, SMACK Health
By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH
To hear Matthew Holt tear apart a pitch deck—or worse, a demo—one thinks of another Brit with a penchant for criticism and tell-it-like-it-is tough love. Could Matthew Holt be the Simon Cowell of health tech? Or maybe he’s got a point underneath all that gruff? Having co-founded Health 2.0, Matthew helped bring digital health and health tech startups into the mainstream by providing a friendly forum for entrepreneurs and established healthcare incumbents. Along the way, he’s suffered through his fair share of demos and pitches, and watched all corners of the healthcare market as it reacted to (and invested in) tech health solutions. Now bringing that 30 years of wisdom to startups seeking coaching, help with strategy, business model design, fundraising, and, of course, demoing and pitching, Matthew explains how he hopes to help the current class of up-and-coming health startups via his consulting biz, SMACK Health.
Filmed at HLTH 2019 in Las Vegas, October 2019.
