Israel’s venture capital firm Pitango has raised $175 million for a new fund focused on backing entrepreneurs leveraging data science, artificial intelligence (AI), medical devices and novel biology to transform health care. Pitango Healthtech II is the firm’s second fund dedicated to health care and will see investment go into 15 companies ranging from those at the seed stage to those wanting commercial stage investment.
The U.K. government’s recent allocation of £13 million (US$16.5 million) to fund research that will deliver cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) projects is a sign of its ongoing commitment to use the latest innovative technologies to modernize the health care sector. However, a group of MPs have released a report which warned that although AI offers significant opportunities there remains governance challenges that must be addressed.
Two papers published in Nature on Aug. 23, 2023, describe brain computer interfaces (BCI) with unprecedented capabilities for decoding brain activity into sentences, translating at speeds around half that of normal speech, and with vocabularies exceeding 1,000 words.
The U.S. Senate held a July 25 hearing on the need for regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), which highlighted an interest in a single overarching agency that would direct any regulations promulgated for AI across the U.S. economy.
Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to entice. On the exhibition floor at the 2023 Congress of the European Academy of Neurology, one company’s booth featured “Mindart” technology. A passersby could answer a short series of prompts, and get a unique image based on the input made by generative AI. Entertainment aside, medically speaking, AI applications “are still research,” Riccardo Soffietti told his audience at one of several sessions devoted to AI. “But obviously, research is the future.”
Breakthroughs in early detection of cancer offer increasing hope for better outcomes and longer lives for individuals affected by malignancies. This year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting highlighted strong results from several companies at the forefront of this potential transformation.
Perception Vision Medical Technologies Co. Ltd. (Pvmed) raised around $14 million in a series A financing round, to further develop artificial intelligence (AI) cancer treatment solutions for the two major tumor treatment methods, radiotherapy, and surgery.
It is now possible to look up the 3D structure of every known protein following the latest release of Alphafold, an open database run in partnership by Deepmind, the London-based artificial intelligence company owned by Google parent Alphabet and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridge, U.K.
Sonio SAS raised just over $5 million in its seed round to develop artificial intelligence (AI) software allowing health care professionals to determine the most appropriate pregnancy care. Its Sonio Diagnostic software delivers decision support for fetal ultrasound used in antenatal diagnostics.
With virtually bent knees and proper posture, Soter Analytics Pty Ltd. raised $12 million in a series A funding round to build on its artificial intelligence (AI)-based ergonomic wearables line that helps workers minimize injuries on the job. The technology tracks all significant shoulder and back movements and provides personalized real-time feedback before improper lifts or twists land users on their backs or in rehab.