Portfolio News

Amwell Raises $194 Million, Committing to Expand the Best and Largest Digital Health Platform

Amwell has announced that it has closed its Series C financing round, adding $194 million in funding across two tranches. Many early investors and strategic partners participated in this round, including Allianz X and Takeda. Amwell will use significant parts of the funds to expand its investment in technology and services that make it easy, convenient, and effective for doctors and patients to connect securely at scale. The company will continue to ensure that clinical encounters remain fully integrated in existing workflows and enveloped with healthcare-appropriate...

Digital Health Investments See Significant Uptick in Q1; Investors Consider COVID-19 Impacts in Coming Months

COVID-19 has brought changes and uncertainty to the entire venture-backed ecosystem. Nonetheless, the digital health sector saw its best first quarter since analysts started tracking its performance more than 10 years ago: according to Rock Health data, the sector logged $3.1 billion in investment across 107 deals. StartUp Health agrees, but its figure is even higher—$4.5 billion in health innovation funding in Q1 2020. Average deal sizes for digital health startups in Q1 averaged about $29 million, which compares to $19.5 million in 2019 and $21.5...

Study finds slight rebound in patient volumes in May, but physicians still in danger financially

A study published recently by the Commonwealth Fund shows that although visits to ambulatory care practices have rebounded slightly, physicians are still facing major obstacles to get their practices back to pre-pandemic levels. The Commonwealth Fund data released April 23 shows that the number of visits to outpatient physician practices declined by nearly 60 percent as of March 29, 2020, compared with pre-COVID-19 levels. But a new update showed that the number of visits rebounded slightly to below 30 percent as of May 10. Although the rebound...

Aetion Launches Research Collaboration with FDA to Advance Understanding of COVID-19

Aetion has signed a research collaboration agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use real-world data to advance the understanding of and response to coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The research will support the FDA’s objectives to explore the natural history of the disease, as well as treatment and diagnostic patterns, by facilitating the use of relevant, novel data sources and analyzing these data according to well-established principles. Aetion and the FDA will identify and analyze fit-for-purpose data sources to characterize COVID-19 patient populations and their medication...

Hims & Hers, Vault Health now sell FDA-authorized home COVID-19 tests via telehealth

Less than a week ago, the FDA authorized a home-collected saliva test for COVID-19. Now that test is available through telehealth companies Hims & Hers and Vault Health. Hims & Hers has greatly expanded its telehealth offerings over the past few months to meet the demand for telehealth primary care services. It has also expanded its mental health offerings. In order to qualify for a COVID-19 saliva test, Hims & Hers customers will need to enter their symptoms, travel history, and other relevant information into an...