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Isaac Souweine leaves Real Ventures, joins Pender Ventures to support Vancouver firm’s expansion across Canada (BETAKIT)
Isaac Souweine has left Real Ventures and joined Pender Ventures as a partner to aid the Vancouver-based VC group’s expansion into Eastern Canada, and help it raise $100 million USD for Fund II. Souweine’s departure from Real Ventures is the latest in a series of personnel changes to the Montréal-based VC firm’s investment team that have taken place since 2020.
Fertility and Period Apps Can Be Weaponized in a Post-Roe World (WIRED)
“If there’s an app out there that’s collecting health data, it will soon be a target,” says Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP). “One of the sad ironies of this is that people who are actively trying to get pregnant will have a harder time using the technology to do it for fear of how that technology might be used against them in a court of law.”
Canadian tech companies expand support for US employees in wake of Roe v. Wade ruling (BETAKIT)
Canadian companies have been slower than their US counterparts to offer abortion support for their American employees as within hours of the ruling, more than a dozen large US companies announced plans. In the week since the ruling, more Canadian companies have come out with similar measures.
The fall of Roe v. Wade shows how little control patients have over medical records (THE VERGE)
Despite being highly sensitive, health data often isn’t as private as people might assume. There isn’t much preventing medical records from being weaponized against people seeking abortions in states where it is illegal. Even though medical records contain sensitive, personal information, most people don’t have much control over the information in them or how they are shared.
Three trends defining the future of cybersecurity (BETAKIT)
Larger organizations with fortress-strength cyber security protocols and hundreds of cyber security employees can still be impacted by attacks on one of the thousands of vendors and partners in their supply chains.
Egyptian healthtech startup Vezeeta cuts 10% of 500-person staff (TECHCRUNCH)
Like many healthtech startups in the region and globally, Vezeeta benefited from pandemic-induced funding, and before this news, there was no indication that the 10-year-old company needed to cut costs. But if there’s anything the current venture capital landscape has shown, no sector is immune to layoffs, as startups from real estate, crypto, q-commerce and fintech (among others) laid off nore than 16,000 employees just last month.
DOT Mind Unlock wins #CollisionConf 2022 startup pitch competition (BETAKIT)
Founded in 2017 by Yishel Khan, DOT provides tech-enabled solutions for improving mental health. Its product suite includes Neuron, a web-based platform that aims to support mental health caregivers by automating diagnosis, monitoring, and management of their patients.
Jobs marketplace Nomad Health nabs $105M to help staff hospital tech, physical therapist roles (FIERCE HEALTHCARE)
Even before the pandemic, the healthcare industry faced a looming shortage of doctors and nurses. The U.S. is projected to have a massive shortage of physicians in primary and specialty care by 2034, according to new estimates. The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a shortage between 37,800 and 124,000 physicians, with the largest disparities being in the area of specialty doctors.
IntelliSports raises $2.5 million for gamified fitness app PlayFitt (BETAKIT)
A spokesperson for IntelliSports declined to disclose the company’s total funding to date. Per Crunchbase, the company has secured over $6 million in financing to date, including a $1.4 million seed round, and $2.9 million in debt from the Government of Québec.
A former nurse at embattled telehealth startup Cerebral said that in her experience, nurse practitioners were handing out antipsychotic medicines like 'candy' (BUSINESS INSIDER)
Now, a trove of internal documents including more than 2,000 incident reports and interviews with more than 30 current and former employees paint a detailed picture of Cerebral's business and medical practices.
Judge rules Apple Watch infringed AliveCor's ECG patent, setting up potential U.S. import ban (FIERCE HEALTHCARE)
The judge's ruling Monday sets up a vote by the full ITC and could lead to an import ban on Apple Watches into the U.S. If affirmed by the full ITC, the administrative law judge's finding of a violation could lead to the issuance of a limited exclusion order barring the import of infringing Apple Watches.
Able Innovations announces $7.5 million to take the pain out of patient transfer (BETAKIT)
The best [medtech] solutions are the ones that change the standard of care, and sometimes they’re super, super simple. And this is that thing,” said Dr. Gaurav Puri. In an interview with BetaKit, Puri described the typical patient transfer process as “pretty crude,” adding that it can cause pain to patients and result in hospital staff experiencing injuries.
Tomorrow Health raises $60M to get more payers on its home care coordination platform (MEDCITY NEWS)
It is common for a patient to be ready for discharge but unable to leave because the medical supplies they need will not be delivered to their home in time. This delay not only interrupts a patient’s healing journey, but it also results in indirect charges that payers must shoulder according to Tomorrow Health co-founder and CEO Vijay Kedar. Tomorrow Health’s platform seeks to address the lack of infrastructure required to effectively connect and coordinate medical providers, home-based care suppliers, patients and payers.
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