A device maker pivots to bitcoin

Semler Scientific, the maker of a digital device that became a popular way for private insurers to screen Medicare Advantage members for peripheral artery disease, has made a surprising pivot…to bitcoin speculation. A team of STAT reporters published a deep dive today on the company's remarkable transformation.

The company's story unmasks the perverse financial incentives at work in Medicare Advantage, and how bitcoin suddenly became a better bet than chasing down artery blockages in Americans over age 65.

investing

Breyer's new partner on health AI startups

At 29, investor Morgan Cheatham has already backed two of the most prominent names in digital health (Hinge and OpenEvidence) and completed his medical degree. Now he's been appointed the head of health care and life science at Breyer Capital, the investment office of legendary tech investor Jim Breyer.

The firm this morning published a new health care investment thesis . The document spells out a philosophy more than it does a specific playbook. I caught up with Cheatham who dove into some of the particulars on their vision for bringing more data sources online, prevention, reimbursement, and more.

regulation

FDA goes silent on AI/ML authorizations

Screenshot 2025-06-24 at 5.42.46 AM

Since the Trump administration took over in January, the Food and Drug Administration has stopped updating its public listing of authorized devices using artificial intelligence and machine learning. The crucial resource for academia and industry has gone silent amid growing questions about how AI, and especially generative AI, ought to be regulated.

STAT's Katie Palmer dove into public FDA documents and uncovered 167 devices that have been authorized since the FDA's list was last updated in September 2024, including and algorithm that uses mammograms to predict breast cancer risk five years into the future and a Fitbit feature that detects the loss of pulse. To date, at least 1,183 AI/ML devices have been authorized by FDA.

policy

Need help parsing the health tech RFI comments?

Like many people, I was eagerly watching the health technology ecosystem request for information docket from CMS and ASTP. I know I'm not the only one overwhelmed as over 1,300 comments poured in including lengthy and technical responses from Epic, Google, and everyone else hoping to guide what promises to be an ambitious tech push from the federal health department.

Microsoft Research's chief architect for health Josh Mandel came up with an appropriately techy solution to automate high-level analysis of the comments that identifies topics and key themes, breaks submitters into categories, and displays everything in a dashboard. As of writing, the docket on regulations.gov has posted less than half of the public comments submitted.

Ambience updates, Novo-Hims drama, funding, a lawsuit, and more

Ambience made two announcements that underscore how the company aims to differentiate from other ambient clinical scribes. Last week, it released an analysis, conducted by health IT specialist KLAS, that shows Ambience's ability to improve billing made St. Luke's Health System $13,000 per clinician user per year. And this morning, Ambience announced the launch of a new feature at St. Luke's called "Patient Recap," an automated pre-visit summary that pulls information from medical records.
Novo Nordisk is ending a deal with telehealth company Hims & Hers, saying that Hims has been engaging in "illegal mass compounding" of GLP-1 obesity treatments and "deceptive marketing." Read more from STAT's Elaine Chen here.
OpenEvidence sued Doximity, alleging executives from the social network for doctors snuck into OpenEvidence's medical search engine and used prompt injection techniques to try to extract source code and other trade secrets.
Sword Health, known for its virtual physical therapy offering, raised $40 million led by General Catalyst and officially launched an "AI" mental health offering called Mind. I spoke to CEO Virgílio Bento about the coming expansion in February.
Speaking of General Catalyst, two other items of note: Commure, which offers a suite of AI services to health systems, raised $200 million from a GC fund meant to help companies advance their marketing and growth. And Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost approved the sale of Summa Health to General Catalyst subsidiary Health Assurance Transformation LLC. The deal comes with a number of stipulations about HATCo's stewardship of the health system.
Tennr announced a $101 million Series C round led by IVP, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed, GV, ICONIQ, Foundation Capital, and Frank Slootman. Tennr works on tech to streamline workflows around referrals.

More around STAT

Check out more exclusive coverage with a STAT+ subscription

Read premium in-depth biotech, pharma, policy, and life science coverage and analysis with all of our STAT+ articles.

What we're reading

Health insurers promise to reduce barriers to care under pressure from Trump administration, STAT
The number of abortions kept rising in 2024 because of telehealth prescriptions, STAT
The challenges of tackling too much screen time, UNDARK