Portfolio News

Rock Health’s COO talks digital health funding, M&As and ‘Teladongo’

At HIMSS’ recent Accelerate Health event, Rock Health Chief Operating Officer Megan Zweig gave participants some insights on how digital health has behaved during the pandemic and the resulting volatile economy. Rock Health statistics point to a record-breaking year. “We’ve already surpassed $7.5 million in funding and are on track for this year to be the biggest funding year yet in terms of U.S.-based digital health companies,” Zweig told the audience. The easing of federal regulations governing Medicare payments for telehealth visits and what platforms are used...

Time-crunched doctors are relying on remote-working scribes to take notes via video call

Medical scribes first appeared in the 1970s, when they began serving as note-takers for ER physicians. But after the federal HITECH Act motivated healthcare providers to adopt electronic health records, scribing really took off. EHRs were supposed to simplify patient record-keeping, but instead they had the opposite effect, with physicians needing to enter visit data and notes into a cumbersome and time-consuming electronic record. Thus, scribing became a fast-growing field in the U.S. The COVID-19 pandemic has also increased the need for remote scribes because note-takers...

Telemedicine startup Hims closing in on deal to go public: 4 details

Hims, a direct-to-consumer telehealth startup, is close to securing a deal to go public through a merger with special-purpose acquisition company Oaktree Acquisition Corporation, according to a September 25 report in Bloomberg. According to people familiar with the deal, the merger could be announced next week and would place Hims’ value at around $1.6 billion. Oaktree is in talks with investors to raise $75 million to help fund the transaction. Representatives for the two organizations did not comment on the situation. Hims launched in 2017 with a...

2020 Precision Health Virtual Symposium

Evidation Health Director of Strategic Partnerships Bray Patrick-Lake was one of the speakers at the afternoon keynote address at the 2020 Precision Health Virtual Symposium, which focused on how health data is gathered and used in research and how the data is being used for patient care. Patrick-Lake started her talk by saying that some time back, she had a health event that led to a clinical trial, and that clinical trial did not go well, partly because it was designed without input from patients and...

Koneksa Completes $16M Series B Financing to Expand Digital Biomarker Platform

Koneksa, a company that develops and implements patient-centric digital biomarkers for drug development, has closed a $16 million Series B financing round. The funds will be used to expand the development of Koneksa’s digital platform for integrating wearables, sensors, and other patient-facing technologies into clinical research. The round was led by Spring Mountain Capital, with new investors McKesson Ventures, Novartis Pharma AG, and MBX Capital. The company’s existing investors also participated in the round. Since its 2015 launch, Koneksa has partnered with pharmaceutical and biotech companies to...