Portfolio News

Early Cancer Detection Startup GRAIL Closes on $900 Million in Series B Funding

In March 2017, life sciences startup GRAIL announced that it had raised $900 million in Series B funding. The newly acquired investment capital puts GRAIL one step closer toward its goal of developing a blood test that can detect early signs of cancer. Founded in 2016 by genomics company Illumina, GRAIL uses top-of-the-line DNA sequencing machinery to uncover early, free-floating cancer in the bloodstream. If caught during this early stage, its possible that the disease can be treated before it takes hold in the body. But it...

Virtual Care Market Insights and Analysis for Period 2017 to 2027

Telehealth, or virtual care, is becoming increasingly important in day-to-day healthcare practices because it provides affordable, high quality, and efficient care. Virtual care involves activities including medical training, monitoring, and education with the support of telecommunication technologies. It includes the necessary software, hardware, and network infrastructure, and is typically used to deal with minor illnesses. Virtual care offers benefits such as an increase in the reach of specialty care resources, reduced costs, improvement in patient compliance, and efficient delivery of continuing education for medical professionals. It also...

Survey: 87% of Physicians Say Patient Trust is Decreasing

According to a recent survey conducted by SERMO, an overwhelming majority of medical practitioners believe that patient trust in healthcare professionals is declining. To be exact, 87 percent of U.S. physicians and 78 percent of foreign physicians said that patients trust their doctors less than they did 10 years ago. These findings are based off a global poll of more than 2,000 physicians. The results of this survey are similar to those drawn from other studies. A recent report from Kyruus, for example, found that patients are...

CVS and Aetna eye competition from Amazon, but the real race is with UnitedHealth

When news broke that CVS Health and Aetna might merge, all eyes turned to Amazon. The e-commerce giant has reportedly been eyeing the pharmaceutical industry, causing industry experts to speculate that CVS and Aetna are merging in an attempt to compete with the online retailer. But as Chad Terhune of The Los Angeles Times points out, UnitedHealth Group could prove to be just as big of a competitor as Amazon. With over 45 million members in the U.S., UnitedHealth holds the title for America’s largest health...

LinkedIn Top Companies: The 50 Most Sought-after Startups

LinkedIn’s new startup-focused edition of the LinkedIn Top Companies lists the 50 companies most attractive to workers and venture capitalists. Although most of the companies on LinkedIn’s list hail from the San Francisco Bay Area, a third of the companies on the list were founded in other parts of the country. About 12 percent of the companies have female CEOs, about double the percentage of female CEOs on the Fortune 500 list. And two-thirds of the businesses on the list are valued at less than $1...