#9 The death of unicorns? 🦄
Also: Youtube certifies healthcare professionals, TikTok causes diabetes drug shortages, digital exercise nudges work & more.
Top of the morning to you. Today's newsletter is 880 words long, or a 3 minute read.
Think about it 💡
📜 YouTube opens up its certification process to licensed healthcare professionals. In an attempt to leave the full monopoly of healthcare misinformation to the bratty little cousin TikTok (foreshadowing, keep scrolling), Youtube announced that it would certify channels of professionals such as physicians, nurses or therapists, who create health-related content. The platform has been struggling with medical misinformation, particularly with regards to vaccination. Youtube will review the licenses of applicants, who will have to agree to follow best practices when sharing health information.
🤝 Microsoft partners with Sophia Genetics to advance multimodal health data analysis. AI tools have transformed many fields, but medicine remains a challenge. This is partly due to the complexity and high dimensionality - meaning a lot of unique features or signals contained in the data - that lead to technical setbacks in building solutions that can be generalized to diverse populations.
To address these challenges, new tools are needed to process health data across multiple sources. The partnership is a step in that direction. Providers using Sophia Genetics' platform on Azure will scale their ability to aggregate multimodal data types and extract information from them within existing workflows. This will hopefully improve clinical outcomes and personalize care by connecting organizations.
Leave diabetes medication alone 🤦♀️
🤡 Nothing delights me more than taking weight loss tips from TikTok. What a hoot. The latest revolutionary tip to pre-shed those upcoming Xmas pounds? DIABETES MEDICATION! How brilliant is that??
This genius idea has been endorsed by high-profile celebrities like Elon Musk and Andy Cohen on Twitter, while TikTok users credit it for Kim K's alleged weight loss and show off their classic before-and-after shots, with a terrifying 50 million views for #wegovyweightloss.
💊 What is it about? A drug called semaglutide, which is available under various brand names, including Ozempic and Wegovy. It prompts the pancreas to produce more insulin and also reduces glucagon, which helps regulate blood sugar. The FDA has approved Ozempic for type 2 diabetes and Wegovy for chronic weight loss management in patients with a BMI greater than 30, or 27 if they have a weight-related comorbidity.
☝️ Off-label use or use when not medically required not only poses a risk of adverse effects, but has also led to a nationwide shortage of medication in the US. And many people actually need the drug, with more than 11% of the US population diagnosed with diabetes in 2019.
How about a certification for stupidity??
Neat News 🗞️
👩🏽🤝👩🏻 Hey Jane, a telehealth startup that supports abortion care, raised $6.1 million in what it calls its "Roe Round”. Neat.
🚑 RapidSOS, a big data platform for emergency first responders, secured $75M in new round. Super neat.
🏠 Daye, a UK-based gynecological health company, raised €11.5 million in series A to launch a home screening kit and bridge the gender health gap. Ultra neat.
What the hellth? 🔬
🏃 Turns out that those motivational quotes you set up on your phone to blast you seven times a day with unrelenting variations of "you will overcome" might actually help you work out. A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota suggests that "digital nudges" intended to motivate users to exercise could actually work.
📊 They analyzed data from a corporate wellness program that offered weekly cash bonuses and used two types of digital nudges: personalized motivational text messages and "kudos" (similar to Facebook "likes"). Motivational messages, which were most impactful for workers who did not exercise extensively to begin with, became more effective over time, while the effect of "kudos" waned.
💰 The global corporate wellness market is a hot industry that is expected to be worth $90.4 billion by 2026. As growth continues, researchers say the key will be to stay connected with users. The opportunity for innovation is great, and the trick will be, as always, to keep users active and engaged.
Clean Content 🧼
🦄 The death era of digital health unicorns is upon us. CB insights released its State of Digital Health Q3 '22 Report, and it’s a sad one friends.
🥼 The pandemic has proven that good and fast research can coexist.
💡 What even is value-based care? Here’s your pocket guide to jump in on the dinner talks.
Opportune opportunity 🔍
🗺️ Unlike all signs from the universe, we at Nabla are very optimistic folks. We believe that digital health startups will surf (with varying degrees of skill - surfing is, let's be honest, not the easiest) the wave of the recession and come out (more or less) stronger. That's why we decided to map the crème of the crop of early-stage digital health startups.
🍦 Are you the crème? Then go fill out this form.
That’s the sound of da Poll-ice 📊
Prominent & pOlarizing prOblems that need resoLving.
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#9 The death of unicorns? 🦄
The diabetes medication part is depressing...
Love this one! Can't wait to see the mapping.