After decades as a technological laggard, medicine has entered its data age. Mobile technologies, sensors, genome sequencing, and advances in analytic software now make it possible to capture vast amounts of information about our individual makeup and the environment around us. The sum of this information could transform medicine, turning a field aimed at treating the average patient into one that’s customized to each person while shifting more control and responsibility from doctors to patients.
The question is: can big data make health care better?
Synthetic biology has become something of a biotech buzz-phrase—lots of lab experiments and hype, yet little tangible impact on patients to show for it.
Still, new ideas keep coming out of the startup world to finally harness the potential that comes with genetically engineering biological parts and systems, with the promise of making a huge difference in healthcare. Today, one of those ambitious ideas is taking shape in a Cambridge, MA-based startup called Synlogic, which aims to whip up a line of custom-made bacteria that double as little drug-making factories.
Subscription-based “box of the month” services have been fairly hit-or-miss so far. While some like Birchbox are still going strong, elsewhere, smaller startups – and even experiments from the world’s largest retailer, Walmart – have faded away. But a new company called Nootrobox is giving the subscription biz a shot anyway by targeting those interested in nutritional supplements – specifically brain nutrients and “smart drugs” also called nootropics.
The waiting room is a boring place. You wait for the doctor, and you fill out forms. And you usually forget all of the information you give or receive while you’re there.
Epion Health sells a patient engagement platform (as a software as a service) that replaces clipboards with iPads and can send patient information into the electronic health record. This is more fun for the patient and improves record accuracy and compliance. Patients can even take care of their payment using the iPad.
Epion has its believers. The company has taken a $4.5 million funding round, its first, from Deerfield Management Company, a New York City based investment firm.
X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans often are at the center of medical diagnoses, but in digital form, they’re usually very large and hard to transmit.
An Phoenix, Arizona company called DICOM Grid has developed a cloud-based service that eases that pain, providing a way to share images among clinicians and patients without violating any HIPAA privacy laws.
The platform uses a couple of cool proprietary technologies to deliver images quickly and securely. The first is a streaming function that allows clinicians to begin viewing images while they’re still coming down from the cloud.
Healthcare is falling behind other industries in prioritizing and attending to security concerns, according to a new report from security company ForeScout based on a survey conducted by IDG Connect. It’s particularly true in the area of mobile device security, the report found.
IDG surveyed 1,596 IT decision makers across the healthcare, education, financial, retail, and manufacturing markets. Twenty-two percent of those surveyed, or about 350 individuals, came from the healthcare sector. Those surveyed came from the UK, the US, and the DACH region of Europe which includes Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Venture capital investment climbed to a level not seen since 2001 in the second quarter, according to private company research firm CB Insights, whose "Financing and Exit Trends" report for the second quarter of 2014 was released on Thursday.
A new generation of anticoagulants have been blamed for the deaths of patients in France. Studies from two leading French health agencies conclude that they do not pose a serious risk, but doubts remain. EurActiv France reports.
Healthcare software provider Syapse has raised $10 million in a Series B round of financing, the company announced today.
Diseases such as cancer often require complex, precise care. Syapse is dedicated to improving how medical professionals diagnose and treat these conditions.
Wouldn’t it be nice if family planning were as simple as turning on the TV? Well, it might be in the near future, thanks to a contraceptive computer chip slated for potential public sale sometime in 2018.
Created by MicroCHIPS, a Massachssetts-based drug delivery implant developer, the chip is to be inserted under a woman’s skin and can be activated and deactivated by remote control. It works by administering a low dose of the hormone levonorgestrel once a day.
The really impressive part? The chip is good for 16 years; only then would you need another visit to the doctor’s office for replacement.
