Healthcare is definitely one of the hottest areas for technological innovation today. While large healthcare enterprises are busy experimenting with new technologies, the most exciting products and services are coming from small startups. Some of them are on their way to becoming the next big thing.
That's why we decided to zoom in on medtech and digital health startups that are redefining their respective fields and pushing the boundaries of technology. Here is a list of the most exciting health startups to watch in 2020.
Health startups to watch in 2020
Verge Genomics
Founded in 2015 in San Francisco, California, Verge Genomics focuses on streamlining the medical trial process. Every year, organizations around the world waste billions of dollars on testing drugs that end up never working. According to one estimation, to place a drug on the market successfully, a company needs to spend $1.3 billion on research and development and acquiring FDA approval.
Verge Genomics offers a unique approach that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify which drugs have a higher likelihood of success. Thanks to this innovative method, the startup wants to help big pharma to better determine which drugs to advance through the FDA approval process and which ones can be abandoned because they are very unlikely to succeed.
Embleema
This startup founded in New York City has launched a HIPAA-compliant healthcare network that allows patients to both access and share their medical records with physicians and researchers. The brand-new solution allows patients to consolidate their data and even drive profits from sharing it with different entities, such as marketing agencies or drug research firms.
We all know the data is a real currency today, so by enabling patients to use the platform to be paid in exchange for sharing their medical data is an excellent idea. Especially since access to data may often be difficult for researchers working on innovative solutions. The startup's breakthrough technology is going to transform the healthcare medical data industry.
BenevolentAI
This exciting artificial intelligence startup founded in London aims to decipher the molecular processes associated with particular diseases. By doing that, BenevolentAI will be able to match the right drug treatments with the right patients.
At the moment, the company has achieved success in determining how to better treat and cure diseases that have been previously unresponsive to treatment. Today, the BenevolentAI platform is being used to create therapies for incurable diseases such as glioblastoma, sarcopenia, or Parkinson's disease.
All in all, the company has addressed over 20 different drug treatment problems and recently announced its intention to innovate other sectors such as energy storage and agriculture.
Hu-manity.co
Founded in Princeton, United States, Hu-manity.co allows users to sell their patient data to big pharma directly. By cutting out the middleman, the company aims to create a new decentralized proprietary technology on top of a blockchain implementation. The company claims that declaring the ability to sell one's medical data is the 31st human right.
Hu-manity.co is now launching a brand-new mobile app that will allow users to share medical data for marketing purposes and medical research. An individual user can create their own medical profile which is searchable by researchers who are looking for particular people to participate in their studies or medical trials. That way, the platform allows users to be paid for their data directly, increasing transparency in the medical records marketplace.
Tempus
Founded in 2015 in Chicago, Tempus aims to make data from previous patients benefit the current ones. In its essence, Tempus is the world's largest library of clinical and molecular data that comes together with an operating system. The system makes data accessible and useful to other entities such as researchers and doctors.
For example, researchers can use the data sets to identify patterns of diseases and come up with new treatments. Doctors, on the other hand, can use the data to customize cancer treatments for individual patients.
Qare
This exciting French startup founded in 2016 is a unique online to off-line virtual medical practice. It offers the French residents in London unlimited access to an exclusive network of medical professionals, general practitioners, and specialists located both in the UK and in France.
The services are available via video conferencing, but also include home visits and appointments with doctors. By covering 12 specialties, Qare is the very first telemedicine platform that offers a holistic health care service to the French-speaking community in London. The startup raised €20 million in funding.
Day Zero Diagnostics
This Boston-based startup uses machine learning to create quick whole genome sequencing diagnostics and offer greater insight into the different treatment options of bacterial infections that might be life-threatening.
The startup wants to create a faster and more effective clinical support system to diagnose such infections. Fast-acting infections like sepsis can lead to death in just a few hours, so the speed of the diagnostic process is a critical factor. Last year, the startup completed an $8.6 million Series A round. Day Zero Diagnostics is planning to accelerate prototype development and introduce sequence-based diagnostics for clinical settings soon.
Rubi Life
Founded by Brigham Young University student, Rubi Life is a company that uses a nanotechnology solution attached to an elastic maternity band to track high-risk pregnancies. The device can monitor the baby's kicks, position, and heart rate.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The monitoring device can send alerts to an expectant mother's smartphone in the event of a risk. That way, the company aims to prevent stillbirths, premature births, or other negative pregnancy outcomes.
The creator of this startup won the first prize in the 2017 Utah Entrepreneur Challenge and then launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to boost product development and help expectant mothers all over the world.
Kheiron Medical Technologies
This exciting startup focuses on the early detection of breast cancer which is crucial to improving the patient's outcomes. By using advanced machine learning technologies, Kheiron Medical Technologies aims to provide intelligent tools for radiologists to assist them in their daily work.
The product combines brand-new deep learning methods, data science, and radiology insights to help doctors identify malignancies in mammograms. It offers state-of-the-art detection support in breast cancer screening. The startup closed a Series A round of funding last year that reached €20 million.
Resistell
Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is one of the biggest challenges in the medical industry today. This problem could potentially become a significant health issue for humanity in the near future. This exciting startup proposes to develop a brand-new approach to identifying bacteria resistant to antibiotics and reduce the time to results significantly.
That's why both patients and healthcare systems can benefit from it. Resistell offers a viable alternative to the current gold standard in antibiotics resistance testing. The innovative method shortens the time required by this test from days to mere hours. It doesn't rely on bacterial growth, which could potentially become a game-changer for the healthcare industry.
Conclusion
All the startups we listed are just a few examples of how exciting and innovative the healthcare field is becoming. Small initiatives powered by the individual passion and knowledge of their founders get a chance to flourish thanks to funding opportunities.
If you'd like to learn more about tech innovation in healthcare, keep a close eye on our blog, where we publish insights from our experts who work with healthcare innovators on a daily basis. And if you’re looking for software engineers to help you develop your healthtech app, let’s get in touch!
