HONG KONG – Whether bats are the source of COVID-19 is a debatable point; however, using sound to navigate like them could prove key for diagnostics and disease monitoring. Bat-Call Ltd. is using its auscultation technology in the battle against the pandemic. It said its patented artificial intelligence (AI) infra-sound analysis and deep learning classification technologies can support the early detection and monitoring of COVID-19 patients.

Tyto Care Ltd. nabbed $50 million in an oversubscribed round of funding the company will use to expand commercialization of its integrated telehealth platform and remote device with examination tools, which has seen a surge in demand with COVID-19. The new cash nearly doubles the New York-based company's total funding, bringing it to $105 million. Insight Partners, Olive Tree Ventures, and Qualcomm Ventures LLC led the latest round.

Digital mental health startup Silvercloud Health Inc. has scooped up $16 million in a series B round led by Memorialcare Innovation Fund. The Boston-based company plans to use the funds to grow program offerings in North America, enhance its global portfolio and conduct new research and clinical trials. LRV Ventures, OSF Ventures and Unitypoint Health Ventures also participated in the round, along with existing investors Act Venture Capital and B Capital Group. With this latest round, Silvercloud has raised a total of $30 million.

BOGOTA, Colombia – Alivecor Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., is taking its Kardiamobile solution to capture medical-grade ECGs to the Mexican market after receiving clearance from the Comisión Federal para la Protección contra Riesgos Sanitarios, that country’s health care authority.

COVID-19 has disrupted science in the way it has disrupted everything else. In the short term, universities have largely closed shop as a way to maximize social distancing, and lots of science – or at least, lots of bench work – is not getting done.

Many adaptations to the coronavirus pandemic will remain standard features of health care long after the pandemic wanes, according to Brian Chapman, managing partner at ZS Associates, an Evanston, Ill.-based pharmaceutical and medical technology consultancy. In the long term, telehealth will be a clear winner as payers look to lower ongoing costs, more procedures and care will move out of hospitals, rapid diagnostics will gain importance, and government and payer coverage of infectious disease testing of all kinds will expand, he predicted.

The emergence of the new variety of coronavirus has had a massive effect on medical care across the globe, which has boosted telehealth coverage while suppressing non-emergency procedures. Several medical societies have published guidelines for procedures during the COVID-19 outbreak, however, which in the aggregate suggest that many procedures will be significantly delayed.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Varian Medical Systems Inc. is no stranger to machine learning applications. It rolled out its first such software to guide photon-based radiotherapy treatment planning more than five years ago. Now, it’s expanding a similar approach for machine learning-driven patient matching and treatment guidance in proton treatment planning.