AI has eaten healthcare and all the news - and funding - this week is centered around its march into the sector. All eyes were on the Epic UGM, where the company shared that it had more than 200 AI features in development. One of those - an AI assistant for clinicians called Art - can draft clinical notes. Art, its highly anticipated ambient scribing feature, was created in partnership with Microsoft (not many people in my network saw that one coming). In my opinion, by far the most important part of the announcement was Cosmos, its dataset built from tens of millions of de-identified patient records that simulates patient health timelines. It’s well worth skimming the actual paper. Yesterday, we hosted a webinar for Second Opinion subscribers to unpack all the Epic UGM news and announcements. If you missed it, you can [watch the full recording here].
While I’m intrigued by all of the AI in development for healthcare, I’m also wondering if we’ve gone too far in investing in software tools that sell into payers and providers. In my mind, the companies most poised to take advantage of generative AI are actually the clinic businesses that own their own stack. I am very bullish on AI-native care delivery, and I’m already starting to see companies reap the benefits of enormous efficiencies. That changes the unit economics of clinic businesses, and makes them far more scalable. Even more fascinating are the AI applications I’m starting to see in Life Sciences, and I truly believe we’ll experience an explosion of new drugs in the next few decades.
Over the weekend, I plan to head to the UK for a week with the family (wish me luck and please send tips regarding two kids under 5 on a long flight). For next week, keep your eye out for a deep dive into the pros and cons of using SMS messaging for care delivery, and not just patient engagement. I truly believe a big company will be created here. Enjoy the rest of your summer and thank you so very much for reading.
A reminder on upcoming webinars:
Webinar Topic | Timing | Registration |
|---|---|---|
Employers vs. Rising Healthcare Costs: Strategies for Employers to Cut Costs Without Cutting Care | Sept 4 | Anyone can sign up here |
The future of media: Operating in a world of independent journalism (in partnership with Hospitalogy) | Sept 8 | Paid subscribers can sign up here |
News Roundup: What you shouldn’t miss from the last week
With Annalisa Merelli
Komodo Health launches first healthcare-native AI engine
The news: Marmot is the first AI engine to be native to healthcare, meaning it has health and pharma domain expertise encoded in the model, which can be applied to healthcare delivery and discovery of new drugs and treatments.
What’s different here?: Speed. There are plenty of AI models that can be applied to healthcare. Komodo Health is betting that tailoring its model to healthcare will make discovery and application much faster.
Who’s on board: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals has already agreed to embed Marmot in its operations to develop custom AI agents that can support its operations.
Our POV: The press release is a bit vague, noting that Alnylam Pharmaceuticals will embed Marmot into its functions. The devil is in the details. What functions exactly? How? What is the pricing model? I hope Komodo produces a more thorough case study on how this is going over the next six months, as I’d be intrigued to follow the methodology, the impact and the outcomes.
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